Phobos: Resident Evil SVI
by Liquid
Summary: After being attacked by unknown forces during a party at TerraSave headquarters, Claire Redfield wakes up on a strange island where a new nightmare awaits. Now along with Moira Burton, she must survive long enough to find a way out... but there is no escape from the plans of the unseen Overseer.
1. Chapter 1 Where Am I?

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter One: Where Am I?**

For what felt like the longest time, Claire Redfield simply felt nothing… no light, no noise, no heat… she was just numb. There were no dreams that came along with this period of unconsciousness, but no pain or discomfort, either, at least… until it started to wear off. With the first sensation to break through the numbness being that of a headache, similar to the ones she had after parties back in college, the woman tried to roll over into a more comfortable position, only to discover that she was not in her bed.

More effort came along with trying to open her eyes than should have, and all that Claire could see at first was a blur of dim light, but it was enough to show her that she was lying on the floor. Cold, smooth concrete could be felt underneath as her body continued to wake up, and after blinking several times the woman became sure that she didn't know where she was. The only sounds were that of her own breathing, with the dim light she had seen coming from the old looking lightbulb that was inside the open-cage fixture mounted on the wall just past the… what the hell… were those _bars_?

Her body was still feeling really sluggish, causing her to grunt and groan her way up to her hands and knees as if the woman were a lot older than thirty three, and then she lifted her head upward to see that, yes, the only way out of this small room was blocked by metal bars as if this… as if it were some kind of jail cell. Claire couldn't remember breaking any laws, and in fact she was having trouble remembering anything at all about how she got to this place, and… _ow_… why was there so much pain in her wrist?

With her vision blurring again for a second while looking down toward her hand, the woman gasped when she saw that there was some kind of metal bracelet locked around her wrist. It's only remarkable feature was a small section on the top, which revealed the number 02 while that section glowed with a pale green light, but the bracelet didn't feel that tight, so why did it hurt so badly? Reaching with her other hand to try and remove it, there was only more pain during the attempt, and that was when the woman saw all of the dried blood around several thin metal bars underneath it that were… oh my God, they were drilled right through her wrist.

"Hello?" Claire called, crawling over to the bars and grabbing them. "Is someone there? Hello?! Can anyone hear me?!"

Waiting a few seconds so that she could listen for a response, the only thing the woman heard was that of her own echoing voice traveling down the dimly lit corridors outside her cell. The good news was that her headache was starting to clear up, and her body was moving around better as well, allowing her to turn around and discover that there was literally nothing inside of her cell. No bed, no sink, no toilet, just a tiny square room with bars in front like the storage locker at the bottom of the basement stairs at any high school.

"Okay, Claire, think." The woman said to herself, taking another look out into the empty corridor. "Just calm down and think… you've been in worse situations than this."

Right, the first thing to do in an uncertain situation was for her to make sure that she herself was all right… and aside from having some kind of bracelet-shackle thing drilled into her wrist, she appeared to be. Unfortunately, aside from the bracelet and her clothes, there was nothing else around that the woman could use; everything that had been in her pockets probably having been taken by whoever put her in the cage… but who had put her in there, and where the hell were they?

Twice before in her life she had been rendered unconscious, only to wake up as the prisoner of some psychopath; first in Raccoon City with Brian Irons getting ready to do… unspeakable shit to her if Sherry hadn't intervened, and the second time was in Antarctica with Alexia Ashford. Things had been pretty straightforward with the RPD Chief, but with Alexia things had just gotten so damn weird that she didn't know whether the blonde woman had wanted to kill her, be her best friend, or… hell, could have been anything.

Yeah, compared to those times, this wasn't that bad so far, and the realization that she wasn't in any immediate danger helped Claire to think, at least a little, about the last things she remembered. There had been some kind of gathering… a party maybe… yes, there was a party at _TerraSave_ headquarters to celebrate the completion of humanitarian aid operations in the _Kijuju Autonomous Zone_ after two solid years of the organization's members rotating through deployments.

TerraSave was such a great organization, and Claire was really proud to be a part of it, especially since they were the ones who stayed behind to help the survivors of bioterrorist attacks. While politicians spent the aftermath of such disasters focusing on how to get enough votes to keep their office, and wealthy corporations like _Umbrella_ and _Tricell_ were simply out to increase their profits, TerraSave looked out for the little guy; providing food and medical aid, and even going so far as to adopt several displaced children as their wards.

Yeah, there was even a new commercial about it being played on TV, with all the organization's members looking like real heroes as they ran into conflict zones, but… focus, Claire… what happened after the party? The woman remembered briefly speaking to Neil Fisher, the founder of TerraSave and therefore her boss, about something that… she couldn't remember. Someone else had been there, too… oh yeah, Moira Burton had been there as well. Her father, Barry, had been a friend of the family for years, with Claire knowing his daughter since she was really young, not that the young woman was much older now, at the ripe old age of twenty one.

Barry hadn't wanted his oldest daughter to have anything to do with TerraSave or the BSAA or anything else that was involved in fighting bioterrorism, but Moira seemed determined to do the opposite of anything he told her. And since she was an adult now, there wasn't a lot her father could have done to stop her, but that didn't stop Barry from making Claire swear on her _life_ that she would look after her. As the woman thought about these things, the memories were slowly coming back, with her suddenly remembering that the power had gone out during Neil's speech.

Then it happened; at first Claire thought that the emergency lights had kicked on, but instead it turned out to be from flashlights mounted onto the bottom of rifles belonging to masked soldiers that just… seemed to drop out from the ceiling. She had become separated from Moira in the confusion of what happened next, the room becoming illuminated with a kind of strobe light effect as the masked soldiers started shooting, and then someone grabbed her. Something like a bag or a sack was pulled down over her head while someone else restrained her arms, and then the woman felt something like a long needle being stuck into her neck before… well, waking up in this cell.

"Come on, this isn't funny!" Claire yelled, smacking the bars. "I know someone's there; let me out!"

Suddenly a low pitch buzzer went off, startling the woman as the bars on her cell door slid open, but still there was no one around. She expected guards to come and drag her out, or even monsters to suddenly attack, but… nothing. Waiting several seconds to make sure that it wasn't some kind of a trap, the woman crawled forward, slowly exiting the cell, and then grabbing onto the bars in order to stand up. Her legs were still a little shaky, and now that she remembered having something injected into her neck, all the sluggishness made sense, although the cell door opening on its own like that didn't.

Claire hadn't done anything to trigger the cell's locking mechanism, meaning that someone else would have had to operate it… someone who was probably watching her at that very moment. Looking both ways down the corridor that was lit up by more of those open cage industrial fixtures, the woman couldn't see anyone in sight, nor even the shadows of movement as anyone snuck away… so maybe… yes, _there_ it was. Up in the corner of the wall, just past where she could have seen it from inside the cage, there was a security camera that was aimed right at her.

This one was an old design, though, like something from back in the late 80's with its big, blocky design, and really obvious blinking red light to show that it was recording. Looking closely at the device, the woman could barely see that the lens was slowly turning to keep her in focus, so someone had to be on the other end monitoring her, right? Well, they were sure to notice when she picked up a small piece of wooden debris, and tossed it right at the blinking red light. If they had been watching her the whole time, there was no point in being stealthy, so Claire walked up as close as she could to the device and waved her arms.

"Hey, whoever you are in there!" She called, jumping to try and smack it but not getting high enough. "I don't know what your game is, or why you brought me here, but it doesn't have to be like this! Are you listening to me? If you want something, just come out in plain sight, and we'll talk, okay?"

Claire really hoped that whoever had brought her there was willing to see reason and simply talk things out, even though she also highly doubted it. Where did these lunatic people come from, and why did they always seem to have some kind of strange attraction to _her_? The woman didn't see herself as anything special, at least not special enough to merit this kind of attention, and quite honestly she had gotten tired of stupid games like this back in the 90's. But at least last time she woke up in a cage her friend Elza Walker was there to help her figure it all out… God rest her soul.

"All right, fine, don't say anything." Claire grumbled to herself, turning away from the camera to start exploring. "You know what, I'll come to _you_, how about that? And then we're gonna have a little _chat_ about all this, I _promise_ you."

That last part was said under her breath so quietly that whoever was watching the camera feed probably didn't even hear it, but that was okay… once the woman found her way out of this prison or whatever this place was, she would be more than happy to explain her views to her kidnapper in person.


	2. Chapter 2 Moira Burton

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Two: Moira Burton**

Maybe it was Claire's mind playing tricks on her, or some kind of illusion of the dim light levels, but every now and then the woman could swear that she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Each time this happened during her walk down the silent, abandoned corridor of this… prison or whatever it was, she would stop and listen for several seconds, only to have that same silence fill her ears. Sometimes she even held her breath for a moment to make sure nothing stopped her from being able to hear, but this silence was almost worse than being followed.

There were several other cages like the one that Claire had been locked inside, each just as bare, but these ones were empty with the doors already open. Had there been others locked up in this place? And if so, where were they now? There were no windows visible so far on this level, making it impossible for the woman to tell if it was day or night, but from the cool temperature of the air, and how stuffy it was, her best guess was that she was in the basement of the place, or at least one of the lower levels.

"Hello?" She called out softly, startled as her own voice broke the silence. "Is anyone there?"

A set of metal double doors was visible up ahead once the hallway curved, and the push-bar on them was unlocked, but Claire found herself hesitating from going through, as a hundred memories began to invade her mind. She remembered the times in Raccoon City when she had been separated from Leon, forced to explore the zombie-infested police station on her own, and these memories were immediately followed by her ordeal just a few months later on Rockfort Island… with a tear running down the woman's cheek when she remembered how her friends Elza and Steve had been killed.

Sometimes she wished that she hadn't continued searching for her brother after Raccoon City, since apparently he was fine the whole time and actually ended up rescuing _her_ in the end. Part of her wished that she had stayed with Leon and Sherry, instead of just leaving them like that… God, what had she been thinking? That rookie cop, er… well, not a rookie any longer, he was the _perfect man_ and she wanted him back, damn it. Too late, though… last Claire heard, he hooked up with the President's daughter after that rescue mission back in 2004, and that was the last she had heard from him.

_Screech_, pushing the door forward, Claire was afraid that the squeaky hinges would attract attention, but at the same time she wanted someone to show up and tell her what the hell was going on here, so these emotions were kind of conflicting to the point where it was making her mad. So mad, in fact, that the woman gritted her teeth and kicked the doors back open once she was through, causing a loud _WHAM_ to echo down the next corridor like her voice had done in the last one.

"I _know_ there's someone here, God damn it!" She yelled, slowly turning around to see in all directions. "So come out here and face me right the hell now, or I swear to _Christ _that I'm gonna…

"Hello?!" A shaky but familiar voice called back. "I'm over here! Help! I'm trapped in here! _Hellllllp_!"

With all of the echoing around the concrete building, it took Claire a second to be able to tell where the voice was coming from, and then rattling of a cage door allowed the woman to keep following the noise to another locked cell around the corner, where a young woman with short black hair was frantically shaking the bars. It was Moira Burton, and even though the poor thing was probably frightened out of her mind, it came as a huge relief to find that Barry's daughter was okay.

"Moira!" Claire called happily as she ran up to the bars. "Oh, thank God you're all right… you _are_ all right… right?"

"What happened?!" The young woman exclaimed, grabbing the woman's wrists through the bars. "Where are we?! Why am I locked up?! Get me out of here, Claire!"

Moira didn't have the experience that Claire did with these kinds of situations, so it was natural for her to be a bit panicked… hell, to tell the truth, the young woman didn't have _any_ experience at all, since her father had always tried to shelter her from anything to do with bioterrorism, and it was only her _first day_ with TerraSave when all this happened. Thankfully, after taking care of Sherry Birkin back in Raccoon City, the woman knew how to handle this kind of thing.

"Moira, listen to me." Claire said softly, putting her hand on the young woman's cheek. "Everything's going to be okay, I promise you, but right now I need you to be brave and calm down so I can figure out how to get you out of there. Can you be brave for me, Moira?"

Honestly, the young woman looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment, but she nodded and did her best to hold them back while Claire looked around for some kind of release lever, or something. Thing was, there didn't seem to be any way to unlock the cage, at least not from right next to the door… and unlike with the woman's cage, this one didn't seem to be opening up on its own. Oh shit, did this mean that she was going to have to leave Moira there while she found the security station or something?

"Claire, why are we hear?" Moira asked, taking Claire's hands again. "I wanna go home."

Oh Lord, if the young woman was this upset now, she was definitely not going to like what she was about to be told next, but suddenly Claire's thoughts were interrupted when she noticed something. Moira had the same kind of bracelet drilled into her wrist as the woman did, this one with the number 06, but for some reason the green indicator light on it had just changed color to orange… but what was the point of that? Looking at her own bracelet, the woman saw that hers was still that same pale green color.

"I'm gonna get you out of there, I promise." Claire said, slowly removing her hands from Moira's. "But I can't open it from here, so I gotta go and find the…

"No, no, _hell_ no, you are _not_ leaving me in here." The young woman interrupted, eyes wide and gripping the bars so tightly that her knuckles were white. "Claire, _please_ don't leave me alone in here."

She didn't want to leave Moira there, but from what the woman could gather, there was no choice, since she couldn't just rip the cage open with her bare hands… as nice as that would have been at the moment. It took a while to convince the young woman to stay calm, since without any obvious way to open the cage, it was a pretty safe bet that she would be safe in there until it was unlocked. Safe from who or what, Claire didn't know, but this was enough to make Moira calm down.

"Look, just stay here, and be as quiet as you can." The woman continued, speaking as softly as she could while backing away from the cage. "I'll be back before you know it, and then we'll get out of here."

The young woman nodded, sniffling a little before backing away from the bars as well. Okay good, Moira was holding it together for now, so Claire continued on down the corridor before the young woman could break down again. Obviously since there was nothing but a dead end and her own cell back the way she came, the security station or whatever this place had could only be forward. Still more cages, and still all of them empty, but if this was a prison, then where were all the facilities?

Where were the showers and the mess hall, and all that? Unless she and Moira had been taken to another country… but seriously… if that was true, then how in the hell did someone manage to smuggle two unconscious American girls halfway around the world, through ports and borders? Apparently, the same way they did it to Ashley Graham, so it was a stupid question… although another of her questions was answered once she pushed open another set of metal double doors, and found herself inside of a large open chamber.

Unlike the confining cages and corridors that Claire had seen so far, this room was _big_; rows of metal tables occupying the biggest space, and surrounded by something that looked like a long forgotten kitchen, as well as sets of stairs that went up to a walkway that wrapped around. Up until now the path forward had been easy to figure out, but in this room there were several doors to choose from on the first floor, as well as a few on the second. At least Moira was safe while she figured this out, but… oh man, this was going to take _forever._

"_You're not lost, are you, Claire_?" A female voice asked, startling her. "_Because it would be sad if the girl who found her way through Raccoon City couldn't navigate around a single building_."

The voice came with electrical feedback as if its owner were speaking through a telephone or an intercom system, but it wasn't echoing off the walls and floor like everything else. Looking around the room, the woman did see some loudspeakers mounted in the upper corners of this mess hall, but they were so old and rusted out that there was no way for them to still be working. So where had the voice come from?

"Is someone there?" Claire asked, realizing that there was no point in trying to be sneaky at the moment. "Where are you?"

"_Everywhere and nowhere_." That same voice replied. "_All seeing and all hearing… to tell you the truth, I've wanted to meet you for a long time, Claire, and I have to say that you're more attractive than I imagined. Maybe you can give some pointers to your little friend in the cage… she practically looks like a boy_."

Now that the mystery woman talked more, Claire was able to tell that it was actually coming from a small speaker that was built into the bracelet on her wrist… probably allowing this person to hear everything that was said. And as for the _all seeing_ part, the woman now understood why that old security camera from the 80's was in such better shape than everything else in the building… this person was watching her and Moira.

"Who are you?" Claire asked, looking up at the closest camera. "Did you bring us here? What do you want?"

"_So many questions, my dear_." The voice chuckled as one of the doors on this level was heard loudly unlocking. "_For now you may refer to me as the Overseer, but we shall grow closer as we take this journey together. After all, the onlooker is, in a sense, a sharer of life who hangs onto the living. Forward now into the darkness, Claire… we shall free the little caged bird together_."


	3. Chapter 3 The Gift

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Three: The Gift**

It was darker inside the next corridor after leaving the mess hall, with the wall mounted light fixtures spaced a lot farther apart, either that or most of them were broken, leaving barely enough light for Claire to see the shadows of what was around her. A narrow hallway like the others so far, with even more cages that were empty and unlocked, the woman found herself moving slowly and carefully, even though there was no obvious threat. This could change in an instant, though, so she needed to listen for even the slightest change in…

"_So calm and careful, Claire_." The Overseer's voice said as the blinking red light of a camera tracked her from the darkness. "_I have to hand it to you, sweetheart, I've had grown men wake up here who were screaming for their mommy within five minutes. You must be at least a little scared, though… you can tell me if you're frightened, Claire, it's all right_."

"I'd rather know why you're doing this to us." Claire quietly replied into the bracelet. "I don't recognize your voice, and I'm pretty sure we never met, so why go through all the trouble of bringing me and Moira here?"

In response to these questions, the Overseer chuckled a little, telling her that all of it would be explained in good time, but that for now the woman should focus on reaching the end of this hallway. Apparently, her unseen captor had left a little _gift_ for her at the end, and although Claire hoped that it was the key to Moira's cell, all of her past experiences told her that it was not going to be that easy. At any moment someone could jump out and attack her, or some kind of crazy trap could be sprung, but so far there was just nothing.

And it stayed that way until the darkened corridor came to an end, where the woman passed through an open doorway into a chamber that was surprisingly well lit. Looking upward, Claire had to put her hand up in front of her eyes because it was so intense, and it took her a second to realize that it was because she was looking at the sun. There was no roof at the top of this chamber, just a big open hole where the cloudy, blue sky could be seen… a way out? No, not yet… she still had to save Moira.

The chamber itself was wide and cylinder shaped, going both up and down from where the woman was, with an old metal staircase that was bolted right to the wall so that whoever was climbing them had to circle the whole perimeter of the room several times to get anywhere. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the light, Claire was able to see more details, including the man's face that was right in front of her. Gasping and taking a step back, the woman was ready to defend herself… only to realize that he wasn't an attacker… he was already dead.

With his ankles tied together and the rope attached to what could have been a crane at the very top of the chamber, this man was hanging upside down a couple feet from the edge of the stairs, strung up like some kind of twisted piñata. Had he been put there on purpose, or fallen into some kind of trap? There was no clue to determine how he got there, but he was wearing a full set of black riot armor like the men who had attacked the TerraSave building, and more importantly he was still wearing his utility belt.

It was hard to see all what he had, but there were pouches for ammo, so maybe there was still a pistol or something. The stairs had no guard rail or anything to keep people from falling to their deaths, and the bottom was a bit further down than the woman was willing to risk, but maybe if Claire was really careful she would be able to lean out just far enough to undo the buckle and take the belt without getting herself killed. After all, this guy looked like some kind of guard, and if so, then maybe he had the key to Moira's cell.

Yeah, it made sense that this dead guard had the key, and the woman was starting to think that this was the _gift_ that the Overseer had left for her… leaning out toward it… reaching… almost there. _Screech_! Suddenly there was the sound of rusted metal moving from somewhere high above, and it was only after the dead guard dropped from sight that Claire realized what it was. The crane or whatever holding him up had been released, and now the body was plummeting toward the bottom of the chamber, followed by the long rope that he was tied to… and now the woman was losing her balance!

Gasping with fear and flailing her arms to catch herself, Claire couldn't help crying out as she tumbled forward from the stairs, but somehow she managed to catch the edge of one of the steps with one hand. For a moment she just hung there, her heart pounding while she breathed rapidly, and… oh God, she looked down… stupid, stupid… _never _look down… look _up_. It was a good thing she didn't weigh very much, or the woman might not have been able to reach her other hand around to grab the stairs, and then groan with the strain of pulling herself back up onto the stairs.

"_Oh my, what a close call that was_." The Overseer's voice said while the woman sat against the wall catching her breath. "_You have to be more careful, Claire, and… oh goodness me, you've dropped your gift; now you'll have to go all the way down there and get it_."

Still catching her breath, and unable to reply at this exact second, Claire had a suspicion that her unseen captor had somehow unlocked the crane on purpose just so that the dead guard would fall down there. I mean, if she had control of the cameras and electronic locks around this prison, then why _couldn't _she control the crane? Either way, there was a bit of a walk ahead of her, so the woman slowly got to her feet and started heading down the stairs, this time being careful to stay closer to the wall.

The bottom of the chamber wasn't really that far down, but because of how wide the chamber was, it took a long time to reach it because Claire kept having to go around and around several times before being able to step down onto the dirt floor. Wood, old bags of concrete, and other construction supplies were stacked on rotting pallets, as if this area had been still being built when the place lost funding or whatever the hell happened. There were also a couple long-rusted machines like an old Bobcat just sitting there… must've been lowered in by the crane.

Okay, where was the guard? Because of how many times she had to circle the chamber, Claire had lost track of where he had fallen from, so she had to walk around the old pallets and machines before finally finding him. His helmet had fallen off and rolled away, and a lot of the riot armor was damaged, not that the woman would have been able to wear it anyway, since the guard was like twice her size. The utility belt was another story though, since the woman was able to adjust it to fit around her waist after removing it from the previous owner. She wouldn't have minded the armor, but this was better than nothing… ok, so what was in it?

Most of the pouches were empty, and although there was a holster for a pistol, the weapon was nowhere to be found. Only thing really of use on the whole belt was the hunting knife inside of another sheath, and that was great because it gave Claire a way to defend herself, but she also didn't find a _key_ in any of the pouches, either. She didn't get it… where was the gift that the Overseer mentioned? The woman checked the pouches again, and even rummaged through the dead guard's pockets, which were also empty.

_Thud_! Suddenly the sound of something landing on wood reached her ears, causing the woman to turn around just in time to see someone jumping down from one of the stacked wood pallets. There was something in his hand, and this person was growling angrily as he ran toward her, so Claire dropped down flat to the dirt, causing the deranged man to trip over her and the dead guard while running past. Losing his balance, he got a face full of dirt when he fell, but then scrambled back to his feet so that he and her both got up at the same time.

Now that she had a second to take a look at him in the sunlight, the woman could see that there was something very wrong with this man who was slightly hunched over, drooling and snarling like an animal while clutching a long crowbar in his hand. And his attitude wasn't the only thing wrong; his skin was heavily discolored with large areas of it looked like it had been slowly burned off, leaving patches of bloody and infected muscle tissue exposed underneath. Like the zombies she had encountered before, the man's eyes were glazed over with blackened teeth starting to rot out of his skull, but she had never seen one that could move so fast before.

Without warning, the deranged man ran at her again, yelling in anger as he swung the crowbar, forcing Claire to back off as he just kept coming. Eventually she couldn't go any farther once her back came up against one of the abandoned machines, and the woman was forced to duck down when the crowbar was swung at her head, causing it to break the machine's window instead. Coming back up before he could recover, Claire pulled open the old door so that it struck the deranged man in the face, and then she hooked her leg behind his while shoving him backwards, making sure to keep hold of the crowbar.

Still growling and snarling after hitting the ground, the deranged man immediately started to jump up, but since the woman now had the crowbar, there was something she could do about that. _Whack_! Swinging the iron weapon like a baseball bat, the deranged man was knocked down again when it collided with the side of his skull. He stayed down a little longer this time, and even longer the second time that she had to hit him, but a lot less the third time since Claire was getting tired… and he wasn't getting tired at all.

She was raising up the weapon to try stabbing it through his skull, but he got up just as fast as before, and the crowbar was sent flying away when he tackled her to the ground. The woman expected him to try and bite her like a zombie next, but was surprised when he continued to growl while giving her a hard punch across the side of the face. Now his big, partially burned hands were clamping down around her throat in an attempt to strangle her… and… she couldn't break his grip.

He was twice her size, and roaring like a maniac while squeezing on her throat harder and harder, but Claire wasn't able to shake him off no matter what she did, so she reached down for the hunting knife and pulled it out of its sheath. With his arms in the way like that, she couldn't get to his throat or anything, so she pointed the blade downward and stabbed it into the side of his knee, putting him off balance enough for her to knock him over sideways. As expected, the deranged man came right back, but this time he was stopped when the woman stabbed the blade right through his eye, into the brain.

For a few seconds he just stood there, like he was frozen in time with the other eye locked onto her in hatred, but then the deranged man collapsed… and so did Claire. Coughing and choking in an attempt to catch her breath, the woman just laid there on the dirt floor, looking up at the sunlit sky that right now seemed a thousand miles away.


	4. Chapter 4 Survivor

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Four: Survivor**

Claire was a lot slower climbing the stairs than she had been going down them, but at least she had managed to catch her breath, even if she hadn't fully recovered from the shock of having to kill that lunatic down there. His deformities had suggested that he was infected with some kind of virus, because it was _always_ some kind of virus in situations like this, but the woman had to admit that she had never encountered a BOW that could move and recover like that… at least not one that was this easy to kill.

Circling the chamber again and again gave her some time to think, remembering all of the more advanced creations of Umbrella that she had come up against both in Raccoon City and on Rockfort Island. William Birkin had been able to fight like that, but he and that big green giant were nearly invincible, and then there were the more human ones like Alexia Ashford and Albert Wesker. A knot formed in her stomach as she remembered how savagely her brother's former comrade had beaten her once he realized who she was, and she would have died as a result of those injuries if… if not for Alexia.

God, that woman had been hard to figure out; with Wesker it was all pretty straight forward, but Alexia had saved Claire's life and looked after her like a little sister who had been left in her charge… while at the same time torturing and experimenting on Steve Burnside like he was nothing but a test monkey. But, at least her savior/captor had given her the Daylight vaccine during that whole shit-show in Antarctica, and as much as the woman didn't want to be indebted to Alexia… it had saved her from infection on more than one occasion since then.

"_You did good down there, Claire, just as I expected_." The Overseer's voice said, interrupting her thoughts. "_For a second there I thought it was all over when he started choking you, but I rather like surprises_."

"What happened to that man?" Claire asked, nearing the top of the stairs. "You said you'd explain everything."

As expected, the unseen captor simply replied that it wasn't yet time for everything to be revealed, although the Overseer did ask why the woman hadn't asked about the key to Moira's cage… which Claire had already figured out was the crowbar. Apparently, the opening mechanism for some of the cells had rusted out over time, and although they could be closed remotely, sometimes a little force was required in order to get them back open.

Thankfully there were no more of those deranged people inside of the dim hallway that was between the stairs and Moira's cell, and the young woman was overjoyed when Claire came back. Moira had been all the way at the back of the cage, huddled down in the corner so that she was as hidden as possible, but as soon as the woman returned, she leapt to her feet. A bruise must have been just starting to form on Claire's face, because Moira immediately asked her what happened, but instead of explaining right away, the woman worked to wedge the crowbar into the door.

"We can figure everything out later." She explained, straining to pry the cage door open once it was in place. "There's a way out, but I gotta… son of a bitch, why won't this…

_Screech_! Claire's strained words became a startled outcry when the door finally popped open, causing her to fall backwards onto the ground. Great, now the woman's ass was going to be sore as well, but at least Moira was free, and it was always a little bit easier to get up when someone was there to offer their hand. The young woman was looking around nervously now, especially when Claire told her that they needed to head back through the darkened hallway, and it was actually a little hard to walk with as close as Moira was staying to her.

"Whoa, that's a _long_ way down." The young woman said, taking a look after being warned how easy it was to slip off. "You almost _fell_ from here?"

"Yeah, and it was a good thing I caught myself." Claire replied, looking back and giving her a smirk. "Falling from _this_ height, I was almost a _Claire-Sandwich_."

In response to this joke, Moira let out a disgusted groan, immediately asking if her father told _everyone_ that stupid old story. The answer was yes, it was actually one of Barry's favorites to tell whenever they were visiting, but the tale itself was actually kind of scary. It was during her Spencer Estate incident back in '98, and apparently Jill Valentine had blindly stumbled into some kind of crushing trap that Barry managed to rescue her from in the nick of time… remarking that _she was almost a Jill-Sandwich_.

Maybe referencing something about the young woman's father wasn't the best way to distract her, given that Barry and Moira's relationship was strained to the point where she often referred to him by his first name instead of dad, but the good news was that she didn't seem so frightened by their current situation any longer. At least, not until they reached the top of the stairs, which was _supposed_ to lead outside, but only led to a passageway back into the building, since the top of the chamber was way too high up to reach.

"Oh shit, you mean we have to go back in there?" The young woman asked nervously, moving closer to Claire again. "There's no other way up?"

"_Moira, what are you so jumpy for_?" The Overseer's voice asked before a reply could be made. "_You don't even know what you should be afraid of yet, and you're about to jump out of your skin… I mean, gosh, if you insist on looking like a boy, then you could at least try to be brave like one_."

Reacting to this insult, Moira quickly replied that their unseen captor could go fuck herself, and this just made the Overseer laugh. Clearly their unseen captor was another in the long line of sadists that Claire had dealt with over the years, and what she had discovered was that sometimes the best way to beat them was to stay calm so that she could figure out a plan logically… a lesson that the young woman had yet to learn, since she just kept yelling obscenities in response to the Overseer's insults.

"Come on, we gotta keep going." The woman said, taking Moira's arm and guiding her through the open doorway. "Try not to let her get to you, it's what she wants."

Both women had to take a few seconds to allow their eyes to adjust back to the lower light levels upon going back into the facility, but at least they seemed to be making progress since this new area looked more like a bunch of administration offices than prison cells. In each of the small rooms a rotted out skeleton of a chair sat behind a worn out wooden desk that might have once been expensive, with rusting metal filing cabinets sitting half open and empty as if whoever had occupied these spaces had to leave in a hurry.

A few signs next to the doors had survived, but the language looked like Russian, so Claire wouldn't have been able to read them or the directory sign on the wall, even if the words hadn't been partially faded. There was also a badly chipped and worn out mural on one of the largest walls of a red flag with a gold hammer and sickle in the corner… oh wow, the woman thought while looking at it, it was the banner of the old Soviet Union, which would explain why this place looked so old and…

_Crash_! Something fell to the floor and broke apart from around the next corner, but it was the high pitch scream and feral growling that followed it, which got Claire's attention. There wasn't any more light in this area than there had been down in the prison, so all the woman was able to see were two figures that went running farther down the corridor; one that was slender like a woman, and another that moved a lot like that creature she had fought down at the bottom of the sunlit chamber.

"No! Help me!" The survivor screamed as she was chased out of sight. "Somebody help me! Heeeeeelp!"

"Come on, Moira!" Claire exclaimed as she started running after them. "That thing's gonna kill her!"

Sprinting toward them with all her strength, the woman found herself having to repeatedly have to slow down or jump to avoid all of the things that the survivor was knocking over or pushing into the middle of the hallway to try and slow down her pursuer. Thing was, the monster was following her so closely that none of the fallen cabinets or shelves were getting in its way… just Claire's. _Bang! Bang!_ Startled when gunfire rang out from up ahead, the woman tried to move sideways when one of the bullets bounced off an old pipe right next to her, but this caused her foot to get caught on one of the fallen shelves.

Landing on her face and sliding a few inches, Claire scrambled to her feet so that she could continue running after them, and Moira had quickly fallen behind in all the commotion. Another scream echoed from ahead, making the woman run even faster, but the survivor had already been tackled to the ground by the creature… so Claire took out her knife without breaking pace and gave the monster a tackling of her own.

Leaping up onto its back, the woman began jamming the blade into its ribs, putting it off balance enough so that they both rolled onto the ground away from the survivor, and not wanting to let it recover like the last one, she put her legs around it in order to keep close while continuing to stab. Ribs, back, head, Claire just kept stabbing and stabbing the monster until even after it stopped moving, leaving Moira to check on the survivor once she finally caught up to them.

Instead of helping her up, however, the young woman just gasped and put her hands over her mouth, causing Claire to look over and see the large twisted blade that was sticking out of the survivor's chest. She tried to sit up and say something, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a large amount of blood that ran down all over her white shirt before she collapsed. But this was no random stranger… Claire knew this woman, and rushed over to her side to try and help her sit up.

"No, Gina, stay awake!" The woman exclaimed, attempting to put pressure around the wound to stop the bleeding. "Come on, stay with me!"

"Claire?" The survivor asked weakly as more blood ran from her mouth. "I…

With that, her head rolled to the side and Gina was gone after letting out one last breath. Like Claire and Moira, there was a bracelet attached to her wrist, but this one had just started to blink red at the moment of the survivor's death, causing the indicator light to go black. For a brief moment the woman wondered what the different colors on all their bracelets meant, but at the moment there was a more serious problem. Gina was from TerraSave as well, so did that mean that even more members of their organization could have been taken captive as well?

As horrible as it had been to watch her coworker die like that, the weapon that she had been trying to defend herself with, an old _Marakov PM_ 9mm pistol, was sitting on the floor against the wall nearby, and Claire needed it. So she carefully set her friend's body down, and scooted over to the pistol, where she took out the clip to see how many bullets were left. Thanks to Gina's wild shooting, there were only a few, but it was better than nothing.

"You're not… you're not actually gonna use that thing… are you?" Moira asked, the nervousness returning to her voice. "Claire?"

"There isn't much choice in these situations." The woman replied, putting the clip back in and chambering a round. "Moira, if Gina's here, then there might be others, and they're gonna need our help. Come on, we gotta go before more of those creatures show up."


	5. Chapter 5 Head Start

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Five: Head Start**

Everything calmed down again after the incident with Gina and that creature, which was good because Claire only had a few bullets left in the pistol she was now carrying, but this period of nothing happening didn't seem to do much for Moira, who was once again sticking to the woman like a second skin. In a lot of ways, the young woman reminded her a lot of Sherry Birkin, or at least how that little girl had been during Raccoon City, but then again Sherry had only been about twelve at the time, while Moira was twenty one.

"Moira, I know you're scared." Claire said quietly as they reached the end of the corridor. "But you're gonna have to give me a little space in case we get attacked again."

"I know, I'm sorry." The young woman replied, taking a whole step back. "I'm just… what the fuck is going on here? Who is that woman that keeps talking? Why is she doing this to us? Why did she let Gina get killed like that?"

At the moment the woman didn't have any answers to give her, and she had hoped that giving Moira the crowbar to defend herself with would help calm her down, but it wasn't helping. Claire's first thought was to try and find another gun of some kind so that they could both fight off any more creatures that attacked, but the young woman sharply refused to go anywhere near a firearm. In everything that had been going on, Claire had forgotten that it was an incident involving a gun that had been the start of the rift between her and Barry.

Moira insisted that she was fine with the crowbar, and they moved on for a short time without further incident, but then the hallway ended. Through the open doorway another large chamber awaited, this one illuminated by sunlight that came in through the large skylight windows that had metal bars over them, allowing the two women to see every detail of the long rectangular cell block they were walking into.

With a row of six cells on each side that were identical to the ones in the lower levels, the only other feature of the room were the twin rusted metal staircases on each end that went up the second floor. There a line of rusted metal catwalks went along an identical row of prison cells, but unlike the ones where Claire and the young woman had woken up, these cages were absolutely _not _empty. Each of them contained a mutated creature like the ones they had already encountered; some of them were pacing back and forth anxiously, while others simply held onto the bars while staring outward as if waiting for someone to release them.

"My God, there's _dozens_ of them." Moira whimpered, moving closer to Claire again. "What are we gonna do?"

"Relax, they're trapped in those cells." The woman replied, hoping that the bars could contain the monsters. "We have to keep moving, so just… just don't look at them, okay?"

"_You're not doing the kid any favors with that advice, Claire_." The Overseer's voice added just as they were about to start through the cell block. "_Running and hiding from what you fear isn't strength, Moira, facing it is… so look at them. Go on… fear what you will become, and become what you fear. Look at them, you ugly little boy… or should I have them come look at you_?"

Suddenly there was a low pitch _beep_ that echoed throughout the cell block, and then all of the cage doors opened, causing the creatures inside to begin freaking out. Growling and snarling like animals, the monsters banged on the bars, throwing themselves at the walls and running back and forth as if trying to find a weakness. The two women jumped at the sound, gasping and stumbling backwards so quickly that they tripped over each other, making their unseen captor laugh as they fell onto the bare concrete floor.

The monsters were attacking and roaring, but they weren't actually attacking yet… and that was when Claire realized that although all of their cells were open, there had only been about a two inch gap created before the doors came to a stop again. So what… was the Overseer just trying to mess with their heads now? The two of them were already well into the cell block now, so there was no choice but to continue onward, but then Moira got really excited by something, pulling on the woman's arm and pointing all the way across the room… where more sunlight could be seen.

It was different though, since unlike all the skylights, the illumination was coming from the first floor, looking almost like a set of windows, or… a _door_! If it was a door that was over there, it might have been the main entrance to this facility, and if so, that meant that the two women could get outside. A surge of hope was building up inside Claire now; hope that if they could get outside, that they could be free of all this and go home, or at least figure out where they had been taken to… but since the Overseer had control of all those cell doors, would it really be as easy as reaching the exit?

"_Thinking of making a run for it, are we_?" Their unseen captor asked as if reading her mind. "_It's quite a run to the exit, but it only takes me a second to open all these cells, and I'm going to push the button as soon as you start moving. Then again, you won't have a chance, and that's no fun… so I'll give you a fifteen second head start and only open the upper floor cells if… only one of you takes the head start."_

Claire and Moira just looked at each other for a second, with the woman wondering if the Overseer was serious, but she already knew the answer. Their unseen captor was sick in the head, getting off on hurting and scaring innocent people like Gina, and after everything she had been put through so far since waking up in that cell, Claire knew that all of the cells would be opened if they ran without meeting the terms. Obviously there was no choice this time, but which way was the best to meet the challenge? Moira was a lot younger, but Claire's legs were longer, so… no, there was only one option.

"Moira, catch your breath and then run for it." The woman said, getting her pistol ready. "Sprint as fast as you can for the doors and don't look back."

As expected, the young woman argued, not wanting to separate or to leave Claire behind, but in the end they both knew that there was no choice. So Moira did as she was told, taking a few deep breaths and then taking off running down the cell block while the Overseer loudly counted down the seconds. The young woman was going as fast as she could, but Barry's eldest daughter was clearly not a track runner back in high school, and time was up well before she reached the exit. _Beep_, that low pitch buzzer went off again, giving Claire the signal to start running while the doors to every one of the upper level cages slid open, and now it was a race for both women to get out before a dozen of those creatures got a hold of them.

For a second the woman thought that they were going to make it, since the monsters had to reach the stairs and come down before being able to really come after her, but then her heart sank when she heard the _thump-thump-thump_ of the deranged people crashing to the floor after diving off of the walkway. Seemingly unhurt from the fall onto bare concrete, the creatures snarled and groaned as they scrambled to their feet, and now the ones nearest to the exit had reached the stairs.

_Bang_! _Bang_! Aiming the pistol behind her and firing, the woman meant to hit the nearest one in the leg, but ended up hitting the one behind it, but that was okay because when that one fell it actually tackled the one she was aiming it, stopping it from grabbing her. The second shot was fired at the first one coming down the stairs, and this time her aim was right on target, hitting that one in the chest because its legs were covered by the guardrails, making it stop for a second so that all the others behind it collided with each other.

With both groups of creatures falling all over each other, the woman was able to run through the inner doors, reaching the exit where Moira was waiting a second later… wait a second, why hadn't the young woman gone outside? Ramming into one of the metal double doors with all her strength, Claire gasped when she was bounced back from it. _Beep_! Another low pitch buzzer went off, causing the inner door to slam shut just as the creatures were about to come through. Enraged, the deranged people grabbed onto the bars, some of them pulling and hitting them, while others tried to throw things at the two trapped women.

Together they tried to force the exit open, ramming their shoulders into the door, but failing to even make it budge a little. To be fair this was a prison door and the two of them weren't exactly big people, but what the hell were they going to do now? Moira gasped and had to jump out of the way when one of the monsters tossed a piece of metal through the bars, and then they both jumped when a couple of the creatures worked together to pick up a table and tossed it at the inner doors so hard that the wall shook a little.

"_Well, isn't this a pickle_?" The Overseer's voice laughed as the two women backed up against the sealed exit. "_You're trapped, Claire, like a pretty little bird in a cage surrounded by cats. Here's the thing though, sweetheart… I have two buttons in front of me, one opens the inner doors to let your new friends kill you, and the other opens the exit. You're such a proud and brave girl, Claire, but I want to hear you beg me for your life_."

"What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?!" Moira yelled back, her voice breaking as the monsters tossed another table into the bars. "Why are you doing this to us, you…

The young woman's words became an outcry of fear when the monsters tossed another table at the bars, this time causing the whole thing to shake as the old rusted bolts in the concrete walls started to move. At this rate it wouldn't be long before the monsters broke through and killed both of them, and Moira's words were just resulting in more laughter and insults from their unseen captor… something had to be done, and this wasn't the first time that Claire was at the mercy of this kind of lunatic.

"All right, you seem to have something against me personally, so you can have me." The woman said, holding up the bracelet to her mouth to be heard over the noise. "I'll stay here and you can take out all your anger or whatever your problem is on me, just let Moira go. She doesn't have anything to do with this… please."

"_Aw, Claire… that's so sweet of you_." The Overseer replied as the bolts in the wall loosened more. "_But you've got me all wrong… I don't hate you at all, in fact… you're my favorite_."

_Beep_! Another sound of the buzzer and the exit doors clicked open, allowing the two women to push through, but then slamming shut and locking again just as the bars of the barred wall of the inner door was heard collapsing. The metal exit doors shook a little as the monsters pounded against it, but they didn't seem to be able to get through for now, allowing Claire and Moira to breathe a sigh of relief even though they both had a strong feeling that the danger wasn't over.


	6. Chapter 6 Distress Call

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Six: Distress Call**

Okay, so they were out of the decrepit old prison complex, and apparently same from all of the deranged monsters inside, since the metal door was holding no matter how hard they pounded on it, so… now what? Turning away from the crumbling concrete building, Claire could see rocky terrain all around them, covered with pine trees and high hills, making it impossible to see more than a hundred of so meters away. The air was also quite cool for the middle of June, enough to make her shiver a bit when the wind picked up, but at least the sun was up.

"So what… is that it?" Moira asked, looking around. "We made it out of the prison, so she's just gonna… let us go?"

"Yeah, somehow I doubt it's gonna be that easy." The woman replied, putting up her hand to block the sun. "We need to get somewhere up high; maybe there's a town, or at least a road nearby that we can follow… hey, what's that?"

Ignoring the young woman's scoffing comment about her thinking that getting out of the prison was easy, Claire had to move her hand and squint again to get a better look at the distant object that was sticking out through the top of the trees. It was really tall, and made of metal bars, making the woman at first think that it was part of the powerline system that brought electricity to the prison, but there were no heavy lines connected to it, nor were there any other similar structures around. No, it couldn't be a powerline system, not with its perfectly straight construction and blinking red light at the very top.

"Holy shit, is that a _radio tower_?!" Moira exclaimed, her voice suddenly filled with hope as she squinted to see as well. "Yeah, it is! We can use it to call for help!"

"Moira, wait!" Claire yelled when the young woman suddenly took off running toward it. "Come back!"

But she wasn't listening; Moira seemed to be so completely fixated on the goal of reaching the radio tower that she was ignoring everything else around her, so the woman had no choice but to go running after her. The young woman was fast, but Claire's legs were longer, so she was able to catch up to Moira and tackle her to the ground just before she would have entered the forest.

"What the hell are you doing?!" She exclaimed, struggling to get out from under her. "Get off me, Claire! We need to get to that tower!"

"What you _need_ to do is shut up and don't move." Claire replied harshly but quietly, clamping her hand down over Moira's mouth and pinning her down. "It's not that easy to get away from people like this Overseer person, Moira… it's _never_ that easy."

From everything she had experienced during her encounters with Brian Irons and Alexia Ashford, the woman knew that they were still in danger there, possibly even more so than while inside the prison. Their unseen captor seemed both playful and sadistic, treating this whole scenario almost like it was some kind of game, and Claire had never played a game that got less difficult after each challenge. The last thing they wanted to do was go running off into the trees while making all kinds of noise, and thankfully, Moira seemed to understand this quickly.

Yes, they were definitely going up to that tower, and hopefully it was still capable of sending out messages, but the journey was going to be a slow one. If there were more monsters in the hills like the ones kept inside the prison, then hopefully the two women would be able to sneak past them, and if there weren't any out there, then… good. Helping Moira to her feet, and apologizing for the rough treatment while helping her brush off, they started carefully making their way past the tree line, with the young woman once again staying near Claire.

Beyond the flat area where the old prison had been built, the terrain was rocky and steep to the point where it would have been difficult to climb without the exposed roots of large oak trees to use as steps and grabbing points. So far there were no signs of more deformed monsters, though, so the woman took that as a blessing as they climbed further up the first hill. Even once they reached the top, the thick trees made it impossible to see the land around them, and both the pines and oaks were too big around for either of them to climb higher, so it looked like the tower was the only way for the two women to accomplish both of their goals.

Even if the ancient looking radio tower no longer functioned, it was still the tallest thing in sight, and… please God let there be some kind of settlement nearby that _wasn't_ run by the mysterious Overseer. As the two women reached the top of the rocky hill, Claire was starting to feel stupid for tackling Moira like that, since there had been no sign of any more of those creatures since they left the prison, and now the landscape leveled itself off again as they got closer to their destination.

This made sense, being that the tower was man made and therefore couldn't be constructed on the side of a rock slope, and after a little bit of walking through the trees they came to a trail that led toward it. Another direction was available, since the trail also curved around the next rocky hill as it went away from the tower, but Claire figured that she would be able to see what was down there anyway once she climbed up to the top. So she and Moira pressed on, followed the heavily overgrown trail until it reached an old covered bridge.

"That _really_ doesn't look safe, Claire." The young woman remarked once they reached it. "Maybe there's another way."

Enclosed by a few rotting support struts that held up a mostly collapsed slat roof, the wooden plank bridge looked just as neglected as everything else in this place, as if the whole area was a remnant of the cold war from the 80's or 70's, and then the whole world just forgot about it after the fall of the Soviet Union. And what was the purpose of this bridge? Probably because the gap between the top of this rock hill and the next was a wide chasm that had to be at least a hundred feet deep… no other visible way to get to the tower, at least none that wouldn't get them killed.

Claire had to admit that she wanted to find another way around as well, but even if there was one, there was no way to tell how long it would take, and there was still the chance of running into more of those creatures the more they wandered around. No, they were going to have to risk it… and the bridge would probably be safe as long as they kept their feet on the supports that were still intact... good thing the woman had been watching her weight. Taking one foot and pressing down on the first boards, Claire wasn't exactly filled with confidence when there was a drawn out creaking sound, but so far it was holding.

"Look between the boards, and keep your feet on the supports." She explained, showing Moira by standing on the very edge. "Try not to put too much weight on one spot, and watch where I step so you know it's safe."

_Creak_… _crack_… _creak_… each time the old bridge vibrated with her steps, the woman's heart started beating a little faster, but so far this plan was working. Moving one step at a time, she was just reaching the halfway point, and trying her hardest not to look down, when something went wrong. With Claire's next step there was another, even longer drawn out _creak_ as the whole bridge seemed to be slowly bowing downward, and there was not a word to describe her horror when she looked back and saw that Moira was right behind her.

Among all of the warnings that she had given the young woman, Claire had forgotten to tell her to keep a few steps distance between them for weight distribution, and now the woman understood that the reason the bridge felt like it was bowing down was because it _was_. With no other option, she simply yelled _run_ while taking off toward the far end of the bridge, having to jump in order to reach it when the remnants of the whole bride collapsed. Moira had jumped too, and while Claire had landed with a slight roll on top of the next rocky hill, the young woman had fallen short, having to grab onto the edge with her hands to keep from sharing the bridge's fate.

When they got out of there, the woman thought as she pulled Moira up onto the flat ground, she was going to sign the young woman up for every type of survival course that TerraSave had to offer, because honestly Moira's lack of experience in every area was killing her… and that had almost become literal a few times now. The good news, though… stay positive, Claire… was that the radio tower was just up ahead, and there were no more visible obstacles left to negotiate.

There was no lock on the chain link fence that surrounded the facility, nor was the door to the control room locked, but even though the old radio equipment appeared to be in pretty good condition all things considering, there was no power going to it. Moira started to panic again while flipping the dead switches, but Claire was able to calm her down by explaining that since there was power going to the single lightbulb that was hanging loosely in the center of the room, there had to be a way to turn on the radio equipment as well.

"All right, you wait here." She said, patting the console. "I'm gonna see if I can find the switch, and then once it comes on, you can send out a distress call, okay."

"Okay… I can do that." The young woman replied, trying to hide how nervous she was. "Just don't be gone too long."

Claire nodded, and then went outside, already having a good guess as to where the main switch was… as she looked up toward the top of the tower itself. The permanently mounted ladder was heavily rusted from neglect, and slippery in some places to the point where the woman almost lost her footing a couple times, but eventually she was able to climb much higher than the trees, to the top of the tower where the red light was slowly blinking. As she thought, there was a heavy switch up there, and as she flipped it, Claire couldn't help wondering why they would design it that way… whoever built it.

With a heavy _thunk_ the whole tower vibrated for a second, which the woman hoped was the radio equipment coming online, and now while Moira was down there calling for help, Claire could stand up and get a look around the place. The wind picked up again just as she did, forcing her to grab onto the railing to steady herself, and then she gasped at what she saw. Looking forward toward the horizon, she looked left and right… behind her, and then forward again, but there was no denying the truth.

The good news was that from this height, Claire could see the whole area… because it was an island, and there was no other mainland in sight for as far as she could see across the water that surrounded it.


	7. Chapter 7 Rescue Operation

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Seven: Rescue Operation**

If anyone had been watching the small island from above, they would have seen a small fishing boat moving rapidly toward it from the south, probably a lot faster than it should have been traveling. The large outboard motor was screaming, being pushed to its absolute limits by the big man standing at the helm, and this time of year the Baltic Sea was really rough, its large waves tossing the small craft upward so hard at times that it would completely leave the water for a second.

Even though the controls of the boat were enclosed on all sides except for the back, the wet wind still managed to find its way in, making the pilot shiver as he headed straight for the small island's coast. _Sushestvovanie Island_, God what a name… it felt like a hundred years had passed since the search for it began… on the night that Claire and Moira disappeared… but the search was over now, and Barry Burton himself, Director of the BSAA, was ready to put this whole ordeal to an end.

"_Please, is anyone out there_?" His daughter's recorded voice had said in the transmission he had received recently. "_My name is Moira Burton, I'm a member of TerraSave… I'm trapped here with Claire Redfield, and maybe some others, I don't know… please, I don't know where we are. If you can hear this, and you can trace my location, send help now! There's this crazy woman, and these monsters, I… I know how it sounds, just send help… please_."

Her voice had been breaking up to the point of stating to cry toward the end, and hearing his daughter sound that scared and desperate made a knot form in the big man's stomach. Ever since that moment the words had been echoing in his head, causing more trauma than anything Barry had gone through in places like the Spencer Estate and onboard the Starlight… and he wasn't ashamed of crying a little himself when he heard it… after all, what father wouldn't in that situation?

Sure, it had been a while since he had been in the field, especially since the BSAA wasn't some tiny little startup any longer, but there was no one else that he trusted to handle this rescue operation. No, the big man was going to handle this one himself, and God help anyone or anything that got in his way. Wearing dark colored fatigues and a light flak vest, with his trusty old _.357 Magnum Revolver_ in shoulder holster, Barry was ready for a fight if it came to that… with plenty of ammo both for the revolver as well as the _M4 Assault Rifle_ slung across his back and the _Beretta 9mm_ pistol in his hip holster.

A long time ago he had learned the dangers of going into an extreme situation unprepared, when STARS Alpha Team had gone into that mansion with barely any weapons against the victims of the T-Virus, and then again after everything went to hell on the Starlight when he was going undercover to backup Leon Kennedy. Speaking of Leon, the thought had crossed his mind to bring along the Government Agent, or even Chris Redfield, but both were about as unavailable as they could get, leaving only _one_ option for support… and it sickened him that he had become so desperate.

Forced to slow down now as the boat neared the shore, Barry had to circle around for a while before finding what looked like the island's only port. Well, it was more of a dock, really, the kind for nothing bigger than small supply vessels, but it was intact, so he brought the fishing boat alongside, before cutting the engine. Now floating free, the big man quickly went to the back where the mooring rope was coiled, and then securely tying it to the dock in a _Cleat Hitch_ so that his escape vehicle wouldn't float away, and then… and then it was time to make contact.

The last piece of equipment that was needed for this mission was the small radio set that he was wearing on the side of his head. This tiny little modern technical wonder was even smaller than the transmitter Leon had used in Spain a few years back, mounted above his ear, and capable of constant audio/visual transmission so that his, uh… _support _would be able to see and hear everything that was happening. Now it was time to check in, so he took a deep breath, and pushed the button to activate the unit.

"This is Barry, I've reached the island." He said with an irritated tone. "Are you receiving me, Tobias?"

"_As clearly as if I were there_." The voice of his former friend replied. "_Of course, this would have been a lot simpler if you just let me come along... I care about Moira, too._"

No… not only no, but _hell_ no was Tobias Liquid going to get anywhere _near_ Barry's family, and he had no trouble verbally reminding the detective of that fact. Back before Raccoon City was blown up, the big man would have gone running to his former friend for help in a situation like this without a moment's hesitation, but after seeing what the T-Virus had done to him and… and after he allowed all those people to get infected onboard the Starlight, just… no… Barry would die first.

Unfortunately, there were no witnesses at all during Claire and Moira's abduction who could provide any useful information, and every lead that was produced during the investigation was hardly more than useless. Even with the resources of a fully funded and staffed BSAA, it was like his daughter had just fallen off the face of the earth… and countless hours of staring at the clues had produced nothing but a growing collection of empty whiskey bottles and used cigarette butts.

Helpless and angry, the big man had been ready to pull his own hair out with worry about what happened to his daughter… and then his wife, Kathy made the suggestion. Sure, Barry had known about the detective surviving the Starlight ever since Leon Kennedy told him about their little adventure in Spain back in '04, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time that his former friend had tracked someone's missing daughter halfway around the world, but Kathy only remembered Tobias from before… she hadn't seen what he and Gillette did to those people.

Barry had nearly shit himself when Leon told him that Tobias's wife was still alive too, but that woman was a whole different kind of nightmare, although Kathy wasn't hearing any of it. Like any distressed mother, all she cared about was the safety of her child, no matter what was involved, so the big man reached out. Surprisingly, the detective was more than willing to help locate her, and once he was able to get everything Barry had so far, his former friend got to work.

Since he had been able to start looking for Ashley Graham with nothing but a partial tire track, it wasn't surprising how quickly Tobias was able to start narrowing down Moira's possible location, but that was when the big man got cold feet. There was a point where he told the detective to back off and forget it, that he could find his daughter on his own… but that just wasn't possible. Eventually, he contacted his former friend again, happy to find out that he hadn't abandoned the search at all. In fact, he now had the name of the most likely location, and Barry set out as soon as he could.

Being that he was still the Director of the BSAA, getting funding and resources together was easy, but his best people were already deployed, and he wasn't about to bring a bunch of rookies along. So he headed out alone, chartering a flight to _Estonia_, and then renting a small fishing boat since apparently there weren't any landing fields on Sushestvovanie Island, the big man was still going to have a hell of a time searching for Moira. The island wasn't very big, but still enough to be a pain in the ass for anyone searching the place on foot, especially on their own… hence the audio/video headset.

"God, it's cold here." He said, shivering while looking around at the port. "No signs of life so far, though… but at least it's not snowing."

"_It would be better if it was, actually_." Tobias's voice replied. "_Snow gives you a way to follow footprints, and if it's falling, you can use it to guess how recently people were there based on how filled in their tracks are_. _Now you have to find clues the hard way_."

Grumbling with frustration while drawing the pistol and getting it ready, Barry had been hoping to spot his daughter as soon as he reached the island, but never in his life had he been that lucky. So he started by looking around the small port, but finding nothing but the partially rotted dock and the algae covered stones it was sitting on. Beyond the dock there was a graveled trail, probably used for the truck that moved supplies back and forth from incoming ships, and at the end of that trail there was a metal gate that was so rusted it looked like it was about to fall apart with…

"Hello." A soft voice said from behind.

Jarred form his thoughts, and aiming the pistol while spinning around, the big man wasn't sure who or what he expected to be there… but it certainly wasn't a little girl. She seemed really out of place, wearing a kind of white dress that looked like something to be slept in, and the same thing with the leather slippers on her feet. This kid couldn't have been more than ten or eleven years old, with neatly braided brown hair tied with a blue ribbon, but… where had she come from?

"Uh… hi." Barry replied, slowly lowering the pistol and looking around to see if anyone else was with her. "Um… where'd you come from?"

Most little kids her age were nervous around adults that they had never met before, but this girl looked like she was perfectly content with the situation, aside from shivering just as much as he was the next time the wind picked up. In response to his question of where she came from, the kid just shrugged, saying that she just woke up a little while ago… huh, looked awful clean for sleeping in a place like this.

"So uh… what's your name, sweetheart?" The big man asked, taking off his jacket and putting it on her, before kneeling down to her eye level. "Are your parents around?"

"I'm Natalia Korda." She replied, smiling a little when he gave her the jacket. "But, I uh… don't have any parents, I'm just… here."

Was it possible that this kid was another kidnapping victim of that crazy woman mentioned on Moira's broadcast? It was odd that Tobias was being so silent about this new development, and the only thing Barry knew for sure was that he had to put Natalia on the boat so that she'd be safe, but when he took her hand to lead her there, the big man noticed some dried blood on her wrist. About to ask her if she was hurt, the next thing he noticed was the metal bracelet that… oh God, it was bolted right through her arm… so she _was_ another kidnapping victim.

Taking adults was one thing, but kidnapping children… that was just too much, forcing Barry to remember when Albert Wesker had threatened his own children back at the Spencer Estate. What kind of monster drills a bracelet through a child's arm? He wondered while looking at the solid red indicator light on top of it… okay, first he was going to put Natalia on the boat, and then he was going to get both her and Moira out of there.


	8. Chapter 8 What Remains

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Eight: What Remains**

It had taken a lot longer to reach the island than Barry guessed, and by the time he convinced Natalia to wait in the boat like a good girl, the sun was starting to set. He didn't have a lot of shelter for the kid, just having her sit down on the bench inside the mostly covered area of the fishing boat with his jacket around her to keep her warm, while giving her some of the food he had brought along to snack on if she got hungry. This little bit of protection was probably a lot safer than what was waiting on the rest of the island, and now that she was secured, the big man needed to get moving.

He hadn't noticed it while the sun was higher, but now that there was less light in the sky Barry was able to spot a blinking red light off in the distance. It was really high up, meaning that it had to be the radio tower that Moira had used to send her message, but… it was also coming from behind the gates at the end of the graveled road, where a seemingly abandoned building was sitting. Except for the small port, the whole coast of the island was bordered by forested rock walls that were too steep to climb, so it looked like the only way to follow his daughter's trail was to go through the gates.

"You still reading me, Tobias?" Barry asked while walking up the graveled trail. "I'm about to enter the building and try to find a way through."

"_Well yeah, I didn't imagine you wanted to climb the cliffs_." The detective's voice replied. "_I'm more concerned about that little girl right now, though… everything about her, and I do mean 'everything' about her seems wrong_."

For once the big man actually agreed with Tobias; the way Natalia just popped up out of nowhere, her cleanliness, and the way she was just so calm about everything… none of it seemed appropriate for a little girl who was alone in a place like that. All right, well regardless of what the kid's story was, she was safe on the boat for now, and Barry needed to find Moira, so they needed to focus on tracking instead of child psychology. The rusted metal gate wasn't locked when he reached it, allowing the hinges to swing open with a drawn out _squeak_, but aside from the kid there had been no other signs of life.

A truck was parked just inside, probably the one used for moving supplies to and from the small port, but apparently it hadn't been used in a really long time, since its frame was mostly rusted, and the tires were flat to the point where the rubber was breaking apart. Caged light fixtures were mounted along the deteriorating concrete wall of the facility, although none of them were working, in fact… there were no other visible lights on at all as the sky slowly got darker… good thing there was a small flashlight mounted on his 9mm pistol, because he was going to need it soon.

"_It's a prison; you can tell by the way it's built_." Tobias's voice said as he looked for a way in. "_The frames of the windows are reinforced to prevent the bars from being knocked out, and I don't think anyone's worked here for a really long time. If you want my opinion, the whole place is only still standing because of how tough it was built_."

Great, the big man thought as he walked up a short set of stairs to what looked like a service door, then hopefully any locked entrances wouldn't be too hard to force. Turns out that this one was unlocked, too, allowing him to enter a small loading bay where several small crates of supplies were stacked up in front of the rollup door where the truck would go. The wooden boxes were falling apart, with whatever had once been inside them having long since rotted away into an unidentifiable black substance.

There was almost no illumination at all coming through the windows even though there were still a few minutes of daylight left, so Barry took out his pistol and clicked on the small flashlight. Even though the interior of this neglected place was easier to see now, the shadows produced by the narrow cone made it all creepier, added to the silence. Outside there had been the wind and crashing of the waves for him to hear, but now that all of those things were muffled by the concrete walls, there was just… nothing.

His own breathing and the light tap of each slow footstep were the only things that could be heard after the big man passed through the loading bay and through an open doorway into a narrow corridor. The echoing from his steps and breathing was worse now, but thankfully the corridor didn't last long; opening up into what looked like some kind of administration area where deteriorating desks and chairs were separated by the broken remains of cheap cubicle walls. Nothing of value remained, this place having been picked clean long ago, but up ahead there was the faded remains of a mural that displayed the old Soviet flag.

"_A cold war era detention center_." The detective's voice said, making Barry gasp a little from the sudden break in the silence. "_Probably for enemies of the Communist State, and chosen because of how hard this island is to find… there's a thousand of these places around the world, and they're all in just as bad of shape as this one… watch your leg_."

The last part of Tobias's message confused the big man, until his knee banged against an old metal radiator, making him hiss with pain and surprise. Kicking the radiator in frustration, this action only produced a loud _clang_ that echoed through the administration room, and Barry was about to tell his former friend what he could do with his warning, until another sound was heard… a sound that he had not caused. Freezing in place and clicking off his flashlight, the room was filled with darkness while the big man strained his ears to listen for what almost sounded like footsteps… but not right.

Sounding decently far away, but coming gradually closer, it was like someone was trying to stumble home drunk, repeatedly stopping and changing directions in an attempt to steady themselves. Another sound was mixed in, a sort of hardened tapping noise that made him think that the unseen person was walking with a cane, or maybe… a peg leg? No, that was stupid, he thought while getting a vision of some kind of old time pirate coming after him, but then all the humor faded away as soon as he heard the breathing… the labored, rasping breath as the footsteps entered the far side of the room.

"_Don't… even… breathe_." Tobias's voice warned. "_Listen for the pattern in the tapping noise, and then use it to move three steps to the right_."

The camera must have had some kind of night vision feature for the detective to be able to see in total darkness like this, but the footsteps were getting closer, so Barry did what he was told; hearing the pattern of how the unseen person moved, and then using it to mask exactly three of his own steps to the right. Once this was done, the next instructions were to move five steps forward, but then the big man stopped halfway through this effort when he heard a new sound… one that sent chills throughout his entire body.

"_I'm… lonely_." A strangely feminine voice said from off to the side. "_Please… stay… with… me_."

Although the voice sounded like a woman, it was accompanied by a kind of low, growling sound almost like a second voice trying to hide itself, and Barry was so distracted by this that he only half heard Tobias urging him to keep moving. Too late, the footsteps had come around whatever obstacle was between them, and now it sounded like his unseen stalker was right behind him. He just knew that in only a few seconds the source of the noise would be close enough to touch, impossibly to sneak away now, so he did the only thing he could… use the element of surprise.

Spinning around and aiming his pistol at the unseen stalker while clicking on the flashlight, the big man immediately wished that he had followed Tobias's instructions, because what was revealed in the narrow beam of light was like something out of a nightmare. It was a woman, or at least it had been at one time, now with pieces of its long dark hair falling out, revealing the bloodied, grinning skull that was its face, as if the skin had completely rotted away. This creature's skin was discolored and bloated in places, and a few pieces of fabric were present that might have once been a very attractive formal outfit… including one high heel shoe on its deformed foot, explaining where the tapping sound came from.

"_I'm… not… scared… any… more_." The female creature whispered, bringing its hand up and grabbing onto the handle of a large knife that was embedded in its chest. "_But… so… alone_."

Screaming as it ripped the blade out of itself, the female monster rushed forward while slashing at the big man, but he was able to jump backwards to avoid the attack, before pulling the trigger of his pistol. _Bang! Bang!_ The room was briefly illuminated as the bullets slammed into the creature's chest and shoulder, making it groan and turn sideways for a second while Barry moved around one of the cubicles to put something between him and this… _thing_. He had seen some scary things in the years since everything went to hell in 1998, but this female monster that was awkwardly stumbling its way around the cubicles to follow him… it was just on a whole different level.

"_Barry, make it move one big step to your left, and then run for the door behind you, it looks like it can be locked_." Tobias's voice said through the radio. "_Quickly, before it comes any closer_."

The female creature was constantly moving to try and block his path, so Barry took one big step to the left, and it followed… but nothing happened. Screaming again as it raised the knife, the female monster rushed forward for the kill, only to grunt in surprise when its foot got caught underneath another of the old radiators, causing it to fall on its face. Without thinking, the big man turned around and ran for the door like his former friend told him, having to move around some more cubicles, which slowed him down enough for the monster to get up. Screaming with rage, the female creature ran clumsily after him, but Barry had enough of a head start to get through the opening first.

Grabbing onto the metal door and slamming it in the monster's face as he turned around, he felt for the deadbolt and slid it into place, allowing the big man to sigh with relief even as his pursuer pounded on the metal. He would never admit to this, especially not after what happened onboard the Starlight, but Barry was glad to have Tobias's deductive skills to help him through that. Good, so far the door was holding against the relentless pounding of that creature, but then something moved behind him, causing the big man to spin around and shine his light on… Natalia?!


	9. Chapter 9 Second Sight

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Nine: Second Sight**

It was bad enough to be inside this old abandoned building with that female creature after him, but now that Natalia had once again appeared out of nowhere, the big man's _daddy_ instincts were kicking in, leaving him terrified that something was going to happen to her. The kid was just standing there, seemingly unaffected by the monster's screaming as it banged on the door with all its strength, but thankfully the reinforced metal frame was holding… too bad that the neglected concrete wall it was attached to wasn't as dedicated.

"Shit!" Barry exclaimed when one of the bolts on the door's top hinge fell to the floor. "Natalia, get out of here! Run back to the boat and _stay_ there this time!"

"But I won't be any safer there." The little girl argued while he used his back to brace the door. "And I came to warn you… there's someone else in here besides us."

Well, she was certainly right about them not being alone there, but about ten minutes late for the warning, given that Barry had already met the old facility's occupant. Another bolt worked its way loose and fell to the ground, this time from the middle hinge as the female monster relentlessly attacked the door, but Natalia wasn't leaving, causing the big man to wonder if there was a little girl anywhere in the world who would _actually_ listen to him. Moira was his oldest, and she resisted everything he told her… had for years now… and then there was Polly, his younger daughter… nineteen years old and wanted to be a detective of all things.

"_Please… lonely_." The creature said as the pounding on the door stopped. "_Terra… Save… friends… gone… stay… with… me_."

The relentless pounding on the door had been reduced to soft knocking that sounded like the female monster was maybe scratching at it a little, too. Instead of growling and screaming, now the creature sounded like it was crying, with Natalia commenting on how lonely and sad the monster sounded. Tobias on the other hand, had picked up on the fact that the female monster had mentioned TerraSave, encouraging Barry to try and communicate with it in case the mutated freak actually knew something. This idea seemed ridiculous, but since there was nothing he could do at the moment besides brace against the door…

"Hey, uh… you in there." The big man called, partially in disbelief that he was doing this. "You said you're from TerraSave, right? What happened to you and the others? Is anyone left?"

"_Open… the… door_." The female creature whispered. "_Tell… you… please… lonely_."

No, there was no way in hell that Barry was going to open the door, but he needed any information the monster had, so he started to ask more about the others from TerraSave, but the words became a surprised outcry of pain when something stung his shoulder. Apparently growing tired of speaking, the monster had screamed while stabbing its knife so hard that it pierced the door completely, ripping his shirt material as the bottom of the blade just barely grazed his shoulder while coming through.

Thrown off balance by the sudden attack, the big man was sent stumbling forward when the creature broke the door off the remaining hinges, and if it hadn't stopped to try and recover its knife, there might not have been enough time for him to do anything about it. But instead of coming after Barry and the girl right away, it pulled on the stuck blade, allowing the big man to take the assault rifle off his back as he spun around.

_Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta_! Even though he was forced to drop the pistol and its flashlight, the whole room was illuminated by rapid flashes like a strobe as a hail of bullets began tearing into the monster's bloated flesh. The female creature stumbled backwards while discolored blood ran out from each tiny hole that was punched into its deformed frame, and then with one final growl the monster fell on its back just when Barry's clip was running out. Taking another out of his pouch, the big man reloaded as fast as he could, aiming the rifle once it was ready, but he was only greeted with darkness and silence.

After putting a full clip of thirty rounds into the female creature at point blank range, he certainly hoped that it was dead, but still waited several seconds just to be sure, before slinging the rifle back over his shoulder and picking up the fallen pistol. The monster was definitely down for the count, just kind of lying there in a heap while fowl smelling blood made a pool around it. Okay, now that the danger was over, he could check on Natalia, but when Barry turned around he saw that the little girl was looking right toward the wall; her eyes traveling along it as if watching something that he couldn't see with the flashlight.

"Hey kid, are you all right?" The big man asked, trying to see what she was looking at. "What, um… whatch'a lookin' at?"

"Barry, there's another one of those things here with us." She replied, pointing at the wall. "It was in the room with the woman, but now it's back in the other hall… it's okay, I don't think it's after us."

Leaning through the door back into the administration area and shining his flashlight around, Barry didn't see anything in the other room, and then Natalia said that the mysterious other creature was too far away now, prompting the big man to ask her what she was talking about. The explanation was a little hard to understand, but the little girl basically said that ever since she woke up on the island, she had been able to _see_ the kind of creatures that lived there before they entered the room… not in detail, but kind of like a hazy sort of cloud that was shaped like them… a little.

The creatures still had to be sort of close for her to see them… however it was that it worked, but regardless if there were more of those things around, then it was probably a good idea to get out of there. Heading back toward the boat was pointless, since he still had to find Moira, so taking the little girl by the hand, Barry carefully started the other way, leaving the administration area behind and moving down another darkened corridor. There were no side doors, meaning that at least nothing could come at them from the sides, but it was strange… the big man himself was nervous as hell and trying to control his breathing, but the little girl next to him didn't seem to have a care in the world.

"Are you, uh… doing okay, Natalia?" He whispered, looking back to make sure they weren't being followed. "It's okay to be scared."

"Oh, I'm fine." She replied as they reached another open chamber. "It's just really cold in here."

Yeah, it really was, Barry thought as a light breeze went right through his clothes, but at least the girl had his jacket so that she could stay… hey wait a second, if the wind was reaching them, that meant that there had to be an open window or something up ahead, right? Picking up the pace a little, the next area they entered was much larger than the administration area, and it turned out that this was where the wind was coming from, but it was threw the bars that were still mounted over windows that had probably broken a long time ago.

The sun was completely down now, bringing in no light from the outside, but in the flashlight's narrow beam the big man could see that this was some kind of cell block… Tobias was right, it was a prison. A half dozen cages were on each side of this long rectangular chamber, all of them open and unoccupied, with an identical setup above them, accessible by a set of metal stairways and catwalks that were so rusted out that they looked like they were about to fall apart.

"Tobias, are you seeing this?" Barry asked as they approached the far end of the room. "It looks like some kind of battle took place here… what do you think, the barrier was breached and these creatures came in to attack the survivors?"

Empty until the end of the chamber, where a wall of bars once stood between them and the double doors that were most likely the exit, there was a pile of rotting bodies that were bloated and discolored like that female creature had been. Like her, their faces had rotted away into bloodied skulls, and each of them appeared to have been shot or… well, some of them looked like some bones were broken along the way, but… a while ago.

"_No, I don't think so, Barry_." His former friend's voice replied. "_Look at the impact marks on those bars; they're going outward not in, and those tables weren't knocked over from a stack, they were just thrown there like the creatures were trying to get out. More likely the survivors of this place were trying to lock the monsters in, if anything while they escaped_."

"Then… who killed all of them?" The big man asked, taking another look at the bodies. "A lot of them have been shot, and there's nobody here but that monster I took down, and…

No, wait a second, Natalia said that there was another creature still in the facility, but when asked she said that it was too far away now for her to see where it was. Barry didn't like the idea of staying in this place with some other creature lurking around, especially if it was as dangerous as that first one, so he took the little girl's hand again, and they had to cautiously step around the bodies in order to approach the double doors. Once past them and around the partially fallen metal bars, Barry pushed on the locking bar, sighing with relief when it opened with a soft _click_, allowing them to get back outside.

It was colder there, since there was no barriers to stop the wind, and now it was difficult to see the land around them since there was no exterior lighting and only a partial moon to illuminate the landscape. The shadowy outlines of steep forested hills were all that could be seen around them… no roads… no trails… but then what was the point of having the entrance there, unless the road was just overgrown and invisible in this light. All right, from the other side of the building, the light on top of that tower had been visible, so…

"Okay, there it is." He said to himself, looking upward and seeing the blinking red beacon over the closest hill. "Hold on, Moira… I'm coming for you."


	10. Chapter 10 The Lumberyard

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Ten: The Lumberyard**

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Barry grumbled, looking at the obstacle that was in front of him. "God damn it."

It had been a hard climb, using large exposed tree roots as stepping stones to scale the rocky hill, while helping Natalia along, and only the pistol's small flashlight to show the way, leaving the radio tower in sight as soon as they reached the top. Only problem was that between the two of them and their destination was a large chasm that was so deep the bottom couldn't be seen with the flashlight… and the only bridge around had collapsed a long time ago. There were a few broken supports visible, and what was left of one edge of the rotted slat roof, but that was really about it.

"No, no, no… I'm so close." The big man said in frustration, looking up at the tower's blinking red beacon, and then back across the chasm. "There's another bridge… come on, there's _gotta_ be another one."

The little girl just kind of looked at him as he paced back and forth at the edge of the chasm, walking several meters in one direction, only to come back to the start and then go the other way. With the life of his little girl at stake, anyone should have understood why he was so upset, but there had to be another way for him to get across… the nearby trees weren't so stable with their roots exposed, so maybe he could somehow knock down one of the taller ones and make a new bridge. Or maybe the remaining supports were close enough for him to leap-frog across… hell, what if he got a really big running start and then just

"_Barry, calm down, you're not some soccer mom lifting a car off her baby_." Tobias's voice said through the headset. "_Just stop and think for a second; bridges like this can't be built from just one side, so there has to be another way around, it's just probably gonna be a pain. Start with that trail behind you, and see where it goes… or do you want me to explain to Kathy why her idiot husband got splattered on the rocks_?"

No, no… the detective was right… had to calm down or else he was no good to Moira, but… what trail? Turning around and shining the flashlight, the big man didn't see anything near the bridge nor back the way they came, but then he noticed that there weren't any tall trees off to the left. Yeah, upon closer examination, Barry discovered that although the path was heavily overgrown with small dying shrubs, there was definitely a trail that curved down around the next hill. It looked like the path moved away from the tower at first, but there were no other options available, so he took Natalia's hand as they started down.

"Barry, there's something watching us." The little girl said quietly, taking a quick look back. "I think it's the same monster from in the prison, but its staying back to far for me to be sure."

Not liking the idea of being stalked in a place like this, he turned around to see, but wasn't surprised that there was nothing there. So he asked Tobias if he could see anything, but his former friend reminded him that the headset only allowed him to see and hear from the wearer's point of view. Either way, if something back there was following them, then they needed to pick up the pace, so the big man bent down and scooped Natalia up with one arm so that he could carry her.

Holding the little girl like that both allowed Barry to move faster, but also kept her facing backwards so that she could keep an eye out for their unseen admirer. From what Natalia told him before, it didn't matter if these monsters were hiding behind trees or walls, she could still see some kind of glowing cloudy haze to know that they were there… but for now their stalker seemed to have vanished. This didn't mean that they were safe, and it was possible that they were just too far ahead of it for her to see right now… best to hurry.

Although the overgrown trail went away from the tower at first, it kept curving downward until it was headed back in the right direction, although leaving them in a much lower place. It was flat and cleared out, like the valley that the prison sat in next to the coast, but there were large stacks of old rotting tree trunks piled around, and some more trucks that were in just as bad of shape as the one Barry had seen at the prison's loading bay. Boards were stacked up next to those piles, having been neatly cut, but warped and faded from being exposed to the weather… so what was this, some kind of lumber yard?

From what the big man could see, a hastily constructed chain link fence surrounded this entire area, more than ten feet high with rows of barbed wire along the top. It was all heavily rusted like everything else on this island, and of all the things Barry had brought along to help him on this mission, a pair of wire cutters never came to mind… that was okay though, because it looked like the lumber yard continued on in the right direction toward the radio tower.

"All right, I think we can get through here." He said, setting the little girl down just in case he needed to react to anything. "We gotta stay quiet though, come on."

"Barry wait, there's something over there." Natalia whispered, pointing behind one of the larger tree stacks in their way. "It might be one of those _things_."

Holding still for a second, the big man couldn't hear anything, so he motioned for the little girl to stay back while he checked it out. Clicking off the flashlight so as not to be detected, Barry crept forward once his eyes adjusted to what little light was available, moving around to the edge of the stack, and then slowly taking a peek around. Yeah, there was definitely something over there, and from the way it growled and grunted it had to be another one of those monsters… but what the hell was it doing?

It looked like it was standing over someone else who was lying on the ground, and… crap, was it stabbing a dead body? The big man was about to surprise it with the flashlight and start shooting, but something got in his way when he started… and that something was a little girl who didn't listen any better than his own two kids. Natalia looked like she was trying to get a look at the creature as well, so Barry silently pushed her back into cover, putting a finger to his lips and motioning for her to stay quiet. Oh Jesus, if it wasn't a viral monster that killed him, it was going to be one of three little girls… and the monster still had to be dealt with.

Taking a few deep breaths while his heart slowed down, the big man waited another second or two before making his move. Clicking the flashlight back on while coming around the tree stack, Barry shined the beam right on the creature while preparing to pull the trigger, only to stop… the monster was gone. The dead body was there, the one that it had been stabbing, but as for the creature itself, there was no sign when he stepped out of cover and shined the light in all directions. Where the hell had it gone?

"_Turn that damn light off before it sees you_." Tobias Liquid's voice warned, prompting him to do so. "_Maybe it wandered off; look for footprints and blood trails leading away from its victim's body_ _or_…

"_There_!" Natalia yelled, interrupting the detective's words. "Barry, look out, it's right_ there_!"

He needed to turn the flashlight on in order to see the little girl, and then he turned it in the direction that she was pointing, just in time to gasp when the creature leapt toward him from on top of a nearby stack. The attack came so suddenly that Barry just barely had enough time to step back when its blades came down, but he still felt a stinging sensation when the tip of one of them grazed his cheek. _Bang! Bang!_ Pulling the trigger as he stumbled backwards and fell down, the big man was surprised when he struck the monster once in the arm and again in the leg, not expecting to hit it at all while falling like that… luck must have been on his side.

Growling in pain as it fell on its face at the same time he went down, Barry was finally able to get a good look at the thing while trying to aim at it again, beginning with the realization that it wasn't holding a pair of knives in its hands… they _were_ its hands. So he started shooting again, but somehow the bullets weren't doing as much damage as the first time he shot it, slamming into the thing's chest, but only making it twitch a little before attacking. He had to roll out of the way to avoid getting impaled when the thing leapt at him like a frog, but while he was rolling, the big man was also reaching for the revolver in his shoulder holster.

_Boom_! The immediate area was lit up in a flash while the noise of the hand cannon going off echoed against the tree stacks, and the knife-handed monster was stopped in mid-air when the large bullet struck it in the shoulder, nearly severing its arm by the time it fell to the ground. Like the other creature he had encountered, this one was bloated and deformed in places, but it was built more like a man, and was wearing what might have once been blue jeans. _Boom_! Remaining on his back while the creature made another attempt to attack, Barry fired the revolver again, this time nearly ripping the thing's head off when it was struck in the nose.

This time it didn't get up, and like the last monster its bad smelling blood was pooling up around it, slowly soaking into the ground. Natalia might not have been scared, but the noise must have bothered her because she was still ducked down next to the tree stack with her fingers in her ears, rushing over to Barry as soon as she saw that everything was over. Being fifty two years old, age must have started to catch up to him, because the big man let out a loud groan of his own as he got to his feet, taking a moment to reload his weapons while looking around to make sure there were no other threats.

"Well, that was… different." He said, breathing heavily. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." Natalia replied, taking his hand. "I don't see any more of them, but… I don't like it here."

Now on _that_ she and Barry agreed, and since there weren't any more of those monsters around at the moment, it seemed like the perfect time to resume heading toward the radio tower. He just hoped that Moira hadn't run into anything like that while she was on the island.


	11. Chapter 11 There's Nothing There

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Eleven: There's Nothing There**

Thankfully, there were no more monsters like the one with the knives in the rest of the old lumberyard as Barry and Natalia continued making their way past the old tree stacks and saw mills, but there _was_ a very sturdy gate at the far end. It was the barrier was mocking the big man, since he could see the blinking red light on top of the radio tower up ahead beyond it, but not only was the gate made of heavy metal, but there were also strands of barbed wire running along the top just like with the rest of the perimeter fence.

"Why all this security? It's just a lumberyard." He grumbled to himself, looking up at the distant tower in frustration. "Stay here and keep out of sight for a second, kid… I gotta find something to get us past this."

In addition to how sturdy it was built, the gate was locked with an iron chain that was secured with a padlock that must have rusted out years ago. The thing was degraded enough to stop a key from working, even if he had one, but not enough to make it weak enough to be broken by a bullet… not that Barry could afford to waste any of them anyhow. So once the little girl went and hid herself behind one of the piles of rotted boards, the big man headed toward what looked like one of the tool sheds.

He didn't need a saw or anything like what could be found at one of the mills, no what he needed was a pry bar or maybe a pair of bolt cutters, if he was lucky. The small wooden shed was locked, but thankfully it was also in the same neglected shape as the rest of the place, so it was an easy thing for someone of his size to kick the door open so that the intact padlock fell to the ground. Clicking on the small flashlight, the device's narrow beam was just what was needed for Barry to see everything that was available for use.

"Okay, here we go." The big man said to himself, taking a pair of bolt cutters off the wall. "Aw, shit, really?"

The good news was that he was now in the possession of the exact tool that was needed to break open the gate, however the probably years of them being left hanging in that shed without use had left the tool a bit rusted. So rusted in fact, that no matter how hard Barry tried, he just couldn't get them to open. What he needed now was some oil, but apparently this stroke of luck wasn't strong enough to include a nearby bottle of _WD-40_. No, there was no oil anywhere in this shed, so it was looking like he was going to have to check out one of the mills after all to…

"Barry, watch out!" Natalia called, waving her arms to signal him. "There's something coming!"

As upset as he was about her once again not listening to him, Barry aimed the pistol and looked around, but didn't see anything. The big man had expected another one of the monsters that he had seen earlier to be running toward him, but after scanning the flashlight all around in every direction, there was just nothing. Even going so far as to look up at the roof just in case it was going to dive-bomb him like what happened when they first reached the lumberyard, but… damn it, there was nothing.

"Don't scare me like that, kid." He replied, lowering the pistol. "Now get out of sight; I gotta find some oil to unstick these things."

"Barry, its headed right toward you!" The little girl yelled urgently, pointing off toward the east. "It's getting closer!"

"_Barry, that kid sounds pretty upset_." Tobias Liquid's voice said through the radio. "_There's a lot of strange stuff happening on this island, so don't be too quick to dismiss her_."

Again he looked around, but there was nothing there, just like before. Still, if the kid was saying that there was something coming from the east, then it was a good thing the nearest saw mill was to the west. So keeping his pistol ready, and checking behind him every couple second for threats while starting to move, the big man headed right toward the entrance of the mill, only to hear yet another warning from Natalia, this time with her pointing right toward him and warning him to shoot it.

Getting nervous now, but not seeing anything, the big man stopped when he started to hear some kind of buzzing noise, like the rapid beating of insect wings. The sound was getting louder as if something was approaching, and now Barry was starting to sweat because there was nothing there. _Bang_! Suddenly there was the sound of a gunshot just as a bullet slammed into something that was right in front of him… no literally, _right in front of him_.

He was only able to see it for a second, but that was enough; it looked like a hideously bloated insect that was almost the size of a man, and had a large hunchback where its multiple pairs of wings were mounted. All six of its limbs had a large, nasty looking hook at the end, and once the thing got over the initial shock of being shot like that, its whole body actually started to vanish. Hell, if not for the discolored blood that remained around the wound, he might not have known where to shoot.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Firing his pistol right at the floating wound, the invisible creature growled with each hit, leaving it even more exposed the next time it tried to turn invisible to come after him. However, this distraction allowed the big man to have enough time to take the rifle off his back, and once the flying invisible monster was faced with a hail of bullets in rapid fire, it was not so quick to recover. In fact, after about ten shots with the rifle, it simply fell out of the sky, making a kind of gurgling sound as its whole body became visible.

Invisible flying monsters… Jesus fucking Christ, what next? What, zombies and hunter-killers weren't enough? Now there had to be bloated insect abominations that bended light like the God damn _Predator_? Natalia had seen it though… yeah, she had been trying to warn him about it from the time she had first spotted it, and the big man just dismissed her. Well, there was going to be no more of that, he thought to himself… and this was the first time that Barry had been truly glad that the little girl hadn't stayed with the boat like he said.

Okay, but who fired that shot? Was there someone on the island with a gun? Was it possible that one of those creatures was made with one, like… permanently attached or something. Whatever the case, Barry ran the rest of the way to the mill, and quickly located a rusting bottle of the oil that was used to clean the saw blades. A couple squirts of it from the can and his bolt cutters were good as new… or at least good enough, but this time before running back to the gate, he stopped and listened for that buzzing sound.

Couldn't hear anything, so the big man ran back to the gate, making sure to stay low and keep behind cover in case the mysterious sniper was waiting for him, but thankfully there were no more shots by the time he and Natalia got back to the gate. With a metallic _screech_ and a loud, echoing _pop _the old rusted chain was severed, allowing Barry to shove open the gate, and now there didn't seem to be anything between him and the radio tower except for one last inclined road.

Picking up Natalia again so that he could move faster, the big man quickly realized that this was a bad idea, since the dirt road went uphill for a lot longer than it looked, and he wasn't exactly as young as he used to be. There weren't many things that he was jealous of Tobias Liquid about, given his less than human status, but the one exception was that although the two of them were the same age, his former friend still had the same body that he did back in his thirties… like he hadn't aged a day since Raccoon City.

"Come on, we're almost there." The little girl said, pulling him along by the hand. "It's just a little farther."

Sure, just a little farther, Barry thought while huffing and puffing like an old man… God, it felt like he was never going to reach the tower, but he finally did. It was like one of those dreams where you're trying to run toward something but you can only move slow and whatever you're after just gets further away… but it wasn't a dream when the big man pushed open the old rusted metal door and found the tower's small control room occupied by… nobody.

There was no sign of his daughter anywhere, aside from the same recorded message that he had been listening to on the boat, playing quietly on a loop with the few systems that still had power. The only new piece of information was the garbled voice of who he hoped was Claire, and the mention of something called a… _Wossek_? He couldn't understand most of the last part, but the important thing was that… Moira wasn't around… she was supposed to be there.

"No… she has to be here." Barry said, his voice breaking a little while looking around again. "She just _has_ to be."

"_No Barry, she really doesn't_." Tobias's voice replied harshly. "_What, did you think that after six months, Moira was just going to be sitting in that same spot, waiting for you? Now instead of falling to pieces like a twelve year old who's lost in a store, why don't you ask the local expert that you picked up_?"

Yeah… yeah, the detective was right; there was no way that in the six months that had passed since his daughter's disappearance, that she would have just sat there like a helpless kid. Moira wasn't helpless, she was a Burton, and as tough as any man. But Barry hadn't even thought of asking the little girl if she had seen Moira around, so he did… trying to regain his composure while kneeling down to her level and asking Natalia if she had seen Moira anywhere around during her time on the island.

"Wait… your daughter is named… _Moira_?" The little girl asked, showing real emotion for the first time, and looking almost sad. "Oh no, Moira… she… she's dead."


	12. Chapter 12 The Wossek

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twelve: The Wossek**

Well, the switch had been pulled, and now hopefully Moira would be able to send out some kind of distress signal for someone to find them… wherever they were. A little worn out from the long climb to reach the transmitter switch, Claire sat down on the metal platform, leaning her back against the guardrails and still trying to wrap her head around this entire messed up situation. At least from up there the woman could see the entire layout of the island, although not in very good detail because of…

"_Congratulations on reaching the tower, Claire_." The Overseer's voice said, startling her a little. "_You should hear your little sidekick down there, crying her little eyes out and calling for help… thing is, the transmitter's power supply is a little lacking_."

The unseen woman went on to explain that this tower used to be the island's only broadcast radio station, and since the community was so small they only built a low wattage transmitter, meaning that it was only equipped for short range broadcast. Very short range, to the point where anyone listening for it had to be within about a mile of the island's coast. All technical babble about watts and everything aside, to Claire this all meant one simple thing… that nobody was going to hear Moira's call for help.

"_Aw, sweetheart, don't get all upset_." The Overseer continued after the woman groaned with frustration. "_Your journey isn't over, in fact it's just getting started, and since you're so pretty, I'm even willing to give you a hint to where you're supposed to go next_."

"I've got a hint for you, too." Claire replied, her eyes spotting the surveillance camera mounted on the top of the transmitter switchboard. "Go fuck yourself."

Suddenly the unseen woman let out a blasting laugh as if those words were the funniest thing she had ever heard, and the fact that she was amused by all these awful things happening to innocent people made the woman angry. How could she laugh at how Gina had been killed, and how scared Moira was? Not to mention the horribly mutated people back in the prison, or whatever that building was supposed to be, it just… it wasn't human. So Claire went on the offensive, threatening that if she and Moira weren't let out of this nightmare immediately, that Moira wasn't going to be the _only one_ who was scared.

"_Ah yes, your brother taught you to be a tough little minx, didn't he_?" The Overseer chuckled. "_You're going to need it for what's waiting for you at the Wossek_."

"Yeah, Chris taught me to be tough, all right." The woman replied with a serious tone. "But _Alexia Ashford_ taught me how to hurt people… so you can either let us go _right now_, or I'm gonna find you, and when I do…

Claire had to stop herself now, because her first thought as to what she was going to do to the unseen woman when she got a hold of her was… to infect her just like the people in the prison. She wasn't sure why that was the first thought to pop into her head, but now all the woman could see in her mind was the image of Alexia Ashford torturing Steve… and for some reason this felt like the appropriate thing to do to the Overseer. These thoughts were so jarring that Claire was given shivers, and was unable to finish talking even when the unseen woman laughed at her again.

"_Don't worry, sweetheart; stay alive long enough and you'll have your chance_." The Overseer said. "_But this is a big island, and you need to get to the Wossek before you even think about challenging me, and it could be anywhere. Do you even know what the Wossek is? I'll tell you all about it if you say 'pretty please with a Claire on top'… or else good luck_."

She didn't want to do anything that humiliating, so the woman stood up and took a look all around the island. Although there were plenty of settlements that she could see form there, including factories and villages, but the truth was that Claire had absolutely no idea what a Wossek was. Without directions, she and Moira could spend days, if not weeks wandering around trying to find the thing, so apparently there was no choice… so she did it."

"_Oh come on, darling, give it some feeling_." The unseen woman replied. "_Look right into the camera, bat your eyes and pout a little for me_."

Oh, this bitch was going to _pay_ once she got a hold of her, Claire thought while doing what she wanted. Thankfully though, this seemed to satisfy the Overseer for now, and surprisingly enough the unseen woman actually held up her end of the bargain. After a few comments on how attractive Claire was when she wanted to be, the unseen woman explained that the Wossek was a tavern in one of the island's nearby settlements. It was a fishing village right along the coast, or at least it had been until recently.

"_You're so beautiful, Claire_." The unseen woman continued as she started back down the ladder. "_I hope you're the one to make it through everything, I really do_."

"Trust me, no you don't." Claire grumbled, trying not to lose her footing on the old, rusted ladder. "It's the _last_ thing you want."

It felt like it took even longer to get to the bottom of the ladder than it had on the climb up, but eventually the woman reached solid earth, and then returned to the tower's control room to check on Moira. Inside, the young woman had apparently finished the distress call, which was now playing quietly on a loop, seeming to make Moira feel better. For this reason, Claire decided not to tell her about the transmitter's limited range, since the two of them were still stuck there regardless of whether or not help was coming, and she would rather have Moira _not_ freaking out any more than needed.

"Okay, I got the message to record and send." The young woman said, pointing to the control panel. "With as tall as the tower is, it's bound to reach the mainland… somewhere, right?"

"I sure hope so." Claire replied, hoping that the Overseer was lying to her about its range, but doubting it. "Come on, we have to get to some place called the Wossek."

Neither of them liked the fact that the unseen woman was leading them around like dogs on a leash, but for now this was the Overseer's game, and who knew what would happen if they didn't play along. The tower had been the only safe place the two women had encountered since waking up in their cages, and it was difficult to move on, but the bottom line was that if there wasn't a rescue coming, well… then it was up to them to survive long enough to find their own way out _and_ take down the Overseer so that she couldn't hurt anyone else.

The route ahead was more of what they had encountered before; rocks and trees, but at least the exposed roots made it easier to climb the hills. Moira had spotted a trail that headed down in the other direction, but that wasn't the way they were supposed to go, even though the walk would have been a hell of a lot easier. Claire had to stop to wait for the young woman several times, since she was shorter and couldn't climb as fast, but truth be told the woman didn't mind taking a few breaks herself.

Finally the terrain leveled off again just like the area around the prison, creating a flat valley leading right to the coast, and sure enough there was a fishing village. The place was filled with small stone buildings with poorly shingled roofs, all of it badly in need of repair, but not quite as neglected as the prison building. Whole place was quiet, too, as if it had been abandoned years ago, with nothing making noise except for the wind and waves at the nearby shore.

For a while the two of them wandered through the village, peeking into the unoccupied homes, and seeing that even though nobody lived there, the place was far from empty. All of the small houses that they looked into were full of old furniture, pictures of families were on the walls, although washed out from exposure to the elements, and some even had radios in what must have been the living room. Probably for listening to the island's only radio station, Claire thought as they reached the center of the village.

"Hey, is that it?" Moira asked, tapping her on the shoulder. "Claire, look over there."

Following the direction that the young woman was pointing, she looked over at a building that was slightly larger than the others, and would have thought it was the town hall if not for the old wooden sign hanging near the door that had the word _WOSSEK_ carved into its surface. Wait a second, so the tavern was the largest building in the whole village… oh well, given that it was a small fishing community, the woman supposed that she should have expected nothing less.

Before walking right into the building, Claire wanted to take a look around, specifically in through the windows in order to make sure nothing was waiting there to ambush them. However, all of the windows were boarded up, at least on this floor, and there was no visible way to get up to the second floor from outside. This meant that the only way for them to see what was inside was to… well, go inside. So the woman got her pistol ready while moving up to the door to put her ear up against it.

"I don't hear anything." Claire said quietly. "All right, let's do this."

The door wasn't locked, so she carefully pushed it open with a soft, drawn out _squeak_ of the hinges, allowing a beam of sunlight to shine into the room while she slowly stepped through the door. Suddenly there was a flash of movement off to the side, and the pistol was knocked from her hands as a shadowy figure grabbed her arms. Acting out of reflex, the woman grabbed her attacker by the wrists and spun her whole body around so that the figure was flipped over onto his back, crashing hard to the floor.

Bringing her knee into her attacker's back to keep him down, Claire pulled the arm back and bent the wrist unnaturally so that he couldn't move, while calling for Moira to come in and bash its head with her crowbar. This attack was stopped however, when instead of growling and snarling like the other creatures had done, her attacker actually spoke in a human voice that was surprisingly familiar.

"Redfield?" The man asked, trying to catch his breath. "Is that really you?"


	13. Chapter 13 A Possible Escape

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Thirteen: A Possible Escape**

Gabriel Chavez, Gabe to his friends, was the name of the man who had tried to ambush Claire as she stepped into the building, and even though he might have seriously injured her if her reflexes had been even an instant slower, the woman felt a lot better about the situation now that he was there. Offering her hand to help him up to his feet and then hugging the man, she discovered that he was not alone. Pedro Fernandez was there as well, slowly coming out from behind the bar where he was hiding, and then the group was joined by Moira, who came in once she heard the commotion.

Both of these men were members of TerraSave like they were, making Claire wonder just how many people from their organization the Overseer had taken. The two men had the same story, too, waking up on the island without remembering anything after being attacked at the party, but finding themselves in the middle of a forest instead of the prison complex where she and Moira had woken up. The woman didn't like having to tell them about Gina's death, but was shocked to hear that Gabe and Pedro hadn't been alone at first either.

Edward Thompson, another one of their friends from TerraSave, had also been with the group, but he had been killed during their first encounter with one of those enraged, mutated people who Claire had faced while trying to get the key to leave the prison. Although the woman knew better, part of her had hoped that all of the monsters had been contained in the barricaded facility, but no… of course there were more. There were more in Raccoon City, there were more on Rockfort Island, and there were more here.

Neil was with us, too, but we got separated." Gabe continued, looking out the window to make sure that no one else was out there. "Some more of those monsters attacked, and he was the only one with a gun, so he drew them away… shit, and here I thought we were leaving all this behind at _Kijuju_."

It was true that all of them at TerraSave thought that with the last of the problems having been cleaned up in Africa, that somehow bioterrorism would take a nosedive, but apparently not so much. From Claire's point of view, it was starting to look like there was always going to be some asshole hidden away in some dark corner of the world, convinced that experimenting on people with engineered viruses was a good idea. But what really surprised the woman was hearing that Neil Fisher, the founder of their organization, had been taken along with everyone else.

She sure hoped that their leader was okay, since being separated from the group was never a good thing, especially in situations like these. Huh… Gabe and Pedro had bracelets bolted right into their wrists just like she and Moira did, but while everyone else's indicator lights had become an orange color, Claire's was still that pale shade of green. There had to be some kind of reason for that, but the woman's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden flash of light… wait, no, not a flash of light… the building's lights were simply turning on.

It was nothing fancy, just a bunch of single incandescent bulbs that were hanging loosely by wires throughout the tavern while an old jukebox started to play some even older music that sounded almost Russian… like, cold war Russian. Now that the lights were on, the woman could see that the Wossek was definitely a tavern; an old wooden bar sitting toward the back with a bunch of bottles nearby that were broken or empty, and a few tables with chairs spaced throughout. Everything was dried and starting to rot, though, as if it had been neglected for almost as long as the prison.

"What the hell is going on here?" Pedro asked nervously, backing away from the jukebox as if it were a monster. "How can there be _power_ in a place like this?"

"_An excellent question, Mr. Fernandez_." The Overseer's voice replied from all their bracelets. "_But you should know by now that anything is possible… but hey, you all made it to the Wossek, congratulations. Now that the herd has been culled, the hard stuff can begin… welcome to the brink of true fear_."

God, sometimes talking to this woman was like reading a bunch of _fortune cookies_ in no particular order, and it was unnerving to know that even in the middle of an abandoned fishing village, there were still surveillance cameras up in the corner of the walls for her to spy on them. This explained how the Wossek still had power, but not what the real point to all this was, unless the Overseer really did just want to scare all of them. If so, it was working on Moira and Pedro, who were both constantly looking around like they were expecting something to come running out of the shadows.

"Damn it, we played your game, all right?" Claire asked angrily, looking over toward the nearest camera. "We followed your instructions and got to the Wossek, so tell is what's really going on here."

"_Did you know that your nose crinkles a bit when you're angry, Claire? It's cute_." The unseen woman replied calmly. "_But fine, basically I'm going to throw you at the wall to see who sticks… and who doesn't. The, uh… wall in this case being a special virus that I injected into each of you while you were unconscious_."

The reaction to this news was the same for everyone in the room; looking around at each other with shocked expressions on their faces, and if their feelings were the same as well, Claire knew that they were going to have the same sinking feeling in their stomachs that she did. For a second the woman tried to tell herself that the Overseer was bluffing, but part of her knew that she was not, and judging by the verbal outbursts of shock and desperation from the others, they understood it too.

"_Oh, quit your whining, we all have to die sometime_." The unseen woman continued. "_I'm simply giving one of you the chance to die well… personally, I hope Claire bests all of you, but the game is still young… Claire, let me see your bracelet, something isn't right… hold it up toward the camera_."

"Don't do _anything_ she tells you, Claire." Gabe interrupted, stopping the woman from showing the bracelet, and then holding up his middle finger toward the camera instead. "Just give her the finger like this, and tell her to shove this whole island up her all-seeing ass."

The man walked right up to the camera and put his finger up against the lens to make sure that the Overseer got a good look, and then he turned away from it, putting his finger to his lips for the woman to keep quiet, and motioning for her to follow him. She did as he wanted, motioning for Moira to stay there with Pedro, and once they were outside, Gabe put his hand over the speaker of his bracelet as tightly as he could.

"I saw something on the way over to the Wossek." The man whispered quietly, leaning so close to her that she felt his breath on her neck. "I don't think there's any cameras out here, but we need to be quiet, okay?"

Claire nodded, not really understanding what he meant, but still following Gabe as he moved away from the tavern and past a few rows of old houses before coming around to a small clearing where… _holy shit_. The man had to put his hand over her mouth to keep her from reacting in surprise to what was there, and with good reason too, because there was a small helicopter sitting there, hidden mostly from view by a bunch of rotting cargo crates and partially destroyed walls of what… might have been a house?

"I saw the tail rotor when we were coming in, but I didn't even tell Pedro." He explained, getting close to Claire as if they were hugging so that the Overseer wouldn't overhear. "Claire, if this thing is somehow intact, I might be able to get it working, but we need to make sure that the Overseer doesn't find out… can't even tell the others, okay? They might say something without meaning it."

The woman understood, but still this plan of Gabe's was a real longshot… beyond a longshot, since who even knew how long this helicopter had been sitting there, and it wasn't exactly military grade. It looked more like something that a tourist would rent to go on a pleasure tour, but… from how faded the paint was and all the rust on the tips of the rotors… oh well, fuck it, the plan was better than nothing. Gabe was a good mechanic _and_ a qualified pilot, but with her luck the engine would be missing or something.

No, can't think like that, the woman told herself while silently walking away from the neglected helicopter. God knows that she had bet on several plans that were even more ridiculous in the past, and if a jet that had been sitting underground in Antarctica for twenty years could still fly, then there was no reason that Gabe couldn't get this helicopter working. Only thing was, Claire had to come up with something to tell the others when she got back, since Gabe wasn't with her… but what was she going to say that wouldn't rouse their suspicions before…

"_Ah, there you are, Claire_." The unseen woman's voice said just as she spotted the camera on the outside of the tavern. "_I was starting to get worried… I'm not the jealous type, sweetheart, but how could you just run off with a man like that, when we're becoming so close_."

"Stop it… do you hear me? Just fucking _stop_." Claire whispered harshly into the bracelet, turning away from the tavern. "I'm not your friend, and I'm _damn sure_ not your _girlfriend_, so just… just cut it out."

The Overseer chuckled at this outburst, making another degrading comment about how cute the woman was when she was angry, and then going on to describe what it was like when Claire was first brought to her. Apparently after the unseen woman had injected her with the virus and put her inside that cage, she had held her for a while, remarking that Claire had slept like a little baby in her arms.

"_Is your face red from anger right now… or are you blushing_?" The unseen woman laughed, making Claire even more upset. "_Hey, I know… let's help you calm down by giving you something else to think about_."

The woman was about to ask what she meant by that, but Claire was interrupted by the sound of an alarm going off. It was loud and blasting, the kind of thing that could be heard from a mile away… and it was coming from the Wossek. Exterior lights on the building were flashing along with the noise, meaning that soon every mutated creature on the island was going to find them if she didn't find a way to shut it off.


	14. Chapter 14 The Horror of T-Phobos

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Fourteen: The Horror of T-Phobos**

Running up to the Wossek as quickly as she could, the noise from the alarms seemed to get even louder when Claire pushed her way through the door. Moira and Pedro were trying to find a way to shut it down, but now they each had their hands over their ears, and the woman didn't blame them… God, this sound was deafening. Still, no matter how badly it hurt, she had to find a way to shut it down, so with tears starting to come out of her eyes, Claire searched the small building until she found an old rusted power panel in the very back.

It took more effort than expected for her to pull the only lever on the thing down, since it was so old and rusted into place, and thankfully the blaring alarms stopped as soon as she did, giving the woman's ears a much needed break. However, the rest of the power going to the Wossek was stopped as well, leaving the three of them quite literally in the dark. The lights outside in the village were putting off enough through the windows for them to see each other, but that was really about it, and Pedro was not having the best time as he tried to deal with it.

The young man quickly paced back and forth around the room, franticly looking out each of the windows while breathing so hard and rapidly that it almost sounded like he was gasping for breath. He was right to be on the lookout for any more of those mutated people that might have been drawn to the alarms, but all he was doing was working himself up into a frenzy, which didn't help anyone. The good news so far was that there were no signs of any impending attack from the island's monsters, but this knowledge wasn't helping Pedro very much.

"Pedro, it's all right, we stopped the alarms." Claire reassured him. "Come on, take a breath, we gotta keep our heads."

"Ain't _none_ of us keeping our heads!" The young man snapped, startling her. "Don't you get it; the Overseer's just fucking with us, and she can kill us at any time!"

Everything that the woman did to try and calm his down just made his anxiety worse, and even more so when he realized that Gabe hadn't come back with her. Pedro was becoming increasingly paranoid, sweating with even more labored breaths as he shouted that Gabe had abandoned them all to die. Claire assured him that the other man had done no such thing and that he was just working on something, since she still couldn't risk the unseen woman getting wind of the escape plan to use the helicopter, but when she tried to put her hand on his shoulder, the young man lashed out, yelling again while pushing her away so hard that she tripped and fell backwards onto the floor.

"Claire!" Moira exclaimed rushing over to help her up. "Are you okay?"

The woman was about to answer her, but stopped when she looked over at the still ranting Pedro, and saw that something strange was happening. Not only had his panic become worse to the point where he was screaming and stumbling around the room aimlessly, but the bracelet on his wrist was starting to flash a deep red color. Groaning with pain in a voice that was a bit deeper than his normal one, the young man stumbled around behind the bar, where he stopped and leaned on it… before something happened that made Moira hug onto Claire out of her own fear.

Pedro's cries of fear and pain were even deeper now, starting to sound inhuman as his body stretched and jerked, with parts of his arms and torso beginning to swell up like some kind of insane allergic reaction, but from everything Claire had seen in Raccoon City and Rockfort Island, she knew that this wasn't some kind of reaction… the poor young man was mutating as the result of a viral infection… just like what had happened with Steve Burnside all those years ago.

"_Oh good, you get a first-hand demonstration of T-Phobos_." The Overseer's voice said while the slow mutation continued. "_Unlike other variants of the old T-Virus, this special blend of mine does not work based on time from exposure, or at all unless certain conditions are met, and do you know what those conditions are_?"

It was fear itself, the unseen woman explained as the young man's body slowly became unrecognizable. Or rather, the chemicals produced in the body as a reaction to intense, prolonged fear… and once the viral cells had matured enough, they activated with results similar to what was happening to Pedro. Basically, the stronger the fear, the more intense the virus reacted to the host, which was why the monsters back in the prison hadn't seemed so bad… at least not when compared to how big and imposing the young man's body was becoming.

"Stop this… _please_, stop." Claire said into the bracelet as she and Moira backed away. "I… I'll do anything you want, just release Pedro and let him and the others go, and… I'll stay on the island willingly."

As much as the Overseer appeared to like the idea of having the woman all to herself, according to her there was nothing that could be done once the final reaction started in a host's body. In fact, the only way to stave off the virus's effects was to control your fear and remain calm no matter what was happening, with the unseen woman giving Claire praise for how brave she was being, since the bracelets reacted to those same chemicals. It was true that the woman's light was still pale green, but Claire wasn't calm at all… she was terrified.

"Uh… Claire?" Moira asked quietly while stepping back. "Claire?"

The woman had been so distracted by her conversation with the Overseer that she hadn't noticed that Pedro wasn't screaming anymore… in fact, he was just standing there and being uncharacteristically quiet. The hulking form hardly looked like the young man anymore, though; three times his previous size, with more intensely bloated and mutated features than the prison monsters had shown… and then he growled… a noise that visibly startled both women, and didn't sound human at all anymore as the monster slowly looked up at them.

It grunted and growled, moving around at first as if it wasn't used to its new body, resulting in an awkward stumble as the beast slowly walked back around the bar while the two women backed away. They were still armed, but somehow Claire didn't believe that her pistol and Moira's crowbar were going to be of much help in this situation, so instead the woman gave a slow count of three before telling Moira to run.

Now the monster seemed to really come to life, roaring angrily as the two of them ran out the door, but instead of going to Gabe for help, Claire took Moira's hand and pulled her down the muddy road in the opposite direction. As much as she wanted to have backup from someone who was more experienced than the young woman, she knew that if the monster reached the helicopter, then their only chance to escape could be destroyed, either by the monster or by the Overseer finding out what they were planning.

Thing was, Claire didn't even know whether or not the helicopter could be fixed, but right now it was their only chance, so she pulled Moira around the other side of the building, just as the monster knocked the Wossek's door off its hinges with a loud _crash!_ Now it could be heard walking down the short wooden stairs, and following their path as they turned and ducked behind another building.

"_Nooooo escaaaaape_!" The monster slowly growled. "_Claaaaaire… Claaaaaire_!"

Leading it away from where Gabe was working on the helicopter was all well and good, but besides leading the monster in big circles around the abandoned village, what the hell were they going to do? It wasn't like she and Moira could just run away, since not only would Gabe not know where to find them if he got it working, and there was always a chance that there were even more monsters in other places on this island. Continuing to twist and turn, running down alleyways and moving behind small houses, Claire was trying to figure out a more permanent solution to…

"_Claaaaaire_!" The monster growled, grabbing her by the throat when she ran right into it after rounding a corner. "_Iiiiiiiiiits ooooooooover… noooooo waaaaaaay oooooooout_!"

With its enhanced strength, lifting the woman off the ground with one hand was an easy feat, not that she was very heavy to begin with, but now its enlarged hand was squeezing her throat to the point where she couldn't breathe. _Whack_! Suddenly there was a flash of movement, and the monster grunted when Moira's crowbar came down on its elbow, not hard enough to hurt the thing, but at least the woman was able to breathe again when it dropped her to the ground.

_Whack_! Moira had been about to try hitting it again, but instead the monster backhanded her, causing the small young woman to be lifted off her feet for a second before rolling and bouncing her way across the ground to where she stopped hard against the wall of the closest house. _Bang! Bang!_ Finally having a chance to draw her pistol, Claire fired a few shots into the monster's back when it started walking toward the fallen young woman who still hadn't been able to get up yet… causing it to turn its attention back to her.

"Crap." The woman whispered to herself when she saw that the bullets weren't helping. "Moira, get up! Moira!"

The young woman was moving, but she must have been hit pretty hard, since it was a struggle for her just to be able to get up to her hands and knees, meaning that Claire couldn't run away herself, since the monster might go after Moira again. But what was she going to do? The beast was slow moving enough for her to stay away from it, but each time that the woman got too far away, it turned and started going back to where Moira was, leaving her to have to stay dangerously close even as she led it around several houses… and then it started running.

Taking Claire completely by surprise with its sudden burst of speed, the monster rammed its large shoulder into her, sending the woman flying farther down the muddy alleyway, where she crashed to the ground even harder than Moira had done. At some point her pistol flew out of her hand, but even if she had seen where it landed, the woman was left way too dizzy and disoriented by the hit to be able to search. Now the monster was approaching again, walking toward her while ranting in that slow speech, so Claire got up… only to stumble sideways and fall on her face.

Getting shoulder-checked must have hurt her a lot more than she thought, because getting up was just not happening, and now the monster was standing right over her… but then a small object landed on the ground between them. _ZAP!_ The woman was looking right at the object when it exploded in a flash of brilliant white light, burning her eyes as she screamed and fell over again, and now her ears were ringing, leaving Claire even more frightened as she felt around the muddy ground for… she didn't even know what… a way to escape?

Then something was touching her, making the woman scream in fright because it had to be the monster… wait a second, no… the hand that grabbed onto her was too small, as was the arm that was around her waist to help her walk, but it was also too big to belong to Moira… so who was this that was helping her? And where was she being guided to?


	15. Chapter 15 Neil Fisher

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Fifteen: Neil Fisher**

For what seemed like a long time, someone was leading Claire along toward… well _somewhere_, but who knew where that was? The woman's ears were ringing to the point where she couldn't hear anything else, and any attempt to open her eyes made them burn even worse, effectively leaving her blind and deaf… and completely helpless. Where was Moira? What happened to Gabe and the helicopter? Without being able to find the answers to these questions, she was just getting more upset, and now Claire was really scared as she stumbled along the unfamiliar terrain.

Eventually the long trek stopped, and whoever it was who had been helping her along was now helping the woman sit down on the ground against a, uh… wall made of sheet metal by how it felt against her back. The ringing in her ears was also starting to fade, allowing Claire to hear that the battle against the mutated Pedro was apparently no longer going on, and then she suddenly gasped in both surprise and relief as some kind of wet rag was placed over her burned eyes. It felt so good to just have the pain lessen for a second that she let out a long and loud sigh of relief, and after a few minutes of the rag being held there, the woman's vision was starting to come back into focus to reveal a man kneeling down with her.

"I'm real sorry about that, Redfield." A familiar voice accompanied the shape as her hearing got better. "I got the flashbang off some dead guard, and it seemed safer than trying to shoot past you."

"Neil?" She asked, squinting her eyes and smiling a little. "Neil, is that you?"

With his identity confirmed once the after effects of the flashbang grenade had completely worn off, and with no sign of the mutated Pedro around, Claire was starting to feel safe for the first time since waking up in that cage. Neil Fisher was her boss; the Director and founder of TerraSave, as well as her mentor during her first few missions with the organization. It also didn't hurt that he was handsome and charismatic, and to tell the truth if there was no chance on ever getting Leon Kennedy back, well… what was the harm?

The two of them had never dated or anything, although there was some flirting back and forth, but that was harmless and it had never interfered with the mission. Claire also wasn't the type to just start swooning over a guy just because he was hot, and right now the other thing she didn't see around was Moira. The Director quickly put the woman's concerns to rest after explaining that the young woman was on lookout while he was taking care of her, but what about Gabe? Had he gotten away? Had the monster previously known as Pedro found him?

"I wouldn't worry about Gabe, he's as tough as they come." Neil assured her, dabbing the wet rag on her eyes again. "And good thing, too… because you know I can't resist a damsel in distress."

From almost anyone else, the _damsel_ comment would have felt insulting, but the Director smiled a little when he said it, and pushed Claire's hair back behind her ear, making her smile a little bit too… hopefully not blushing. Of course now that the woman could see and hear again, it was time to get back on her feet, so Neil stood up first, taking her hands and helping Claire get up. Fatigue from the day's adventure was catching up to her, making her a little wobbly at first, but thankfully the Director was there to stop her from falling… although this effort was starting to feel more like a hug from behind than assistance.

"Uh… thanks." She said, more steady now when he let go. "So where are we?"

"Away from the village." He replied, motioning for her to follow. "Come on, I'll show you… and the kid's gonna wanna know you're okay."

Still a tiny bit off balance, Claire looked around to see that they were inside some kind of hastily constructed metal shack, but the real surprise came after following Neil outside to where Moira was watching for any approaching threats. Unlike the rural forest and village settings that made up what she had seen so far on the island, the woman stepped out of the shack into an almost modern looking urban sprawl, with paved roads and buildings with multiple floors, all together looking like the warehouse district of a small city.

A few of the streetlights were on, although it was still daytime, but it meant that there was power in this part of the island along with… now what the hell was _that_? Looking off into the distance at the even taller buildings that made up the center of the city, Claire saw that at the top of the highest one, there was some kind of structure. It looked like someone had built a large facility at the very top of the building, because it dark colored materials looked nothing like the faded white exterior of the rest of it, and there were blinking red lights all around the top perimeter as if someone had installed a bunch of radio towers for…

"There… Neil, there, that tower… thing." The woman said while pointing. "See all the towers on it? Do you think… do you think that's where the Overseer is?"

If the unseen woman _was_ up there, she didn't react to Claire's mentioning of the location, since her voice didn't come through the bracelets, one of which the Director was wearing as well. Like the woman's, Neil's bracelet had a pale green indicator light, meaning that he hadn't begun to panic yet throughout this mess… you know, this was the first time in her life that Claire was happy to have met Alexia Ashford back in 1998. Without being her prisoner and being forcefully injected with the Daylight vaccine so that she could assist with those awful experiments, there was a good chance that the woman might have mutated after the flashbang because… Jesus, she had been so scared.

"If she _is_ up there, maybe we should go the other way." The Director replied, bringing her thoughts back into the present. "You know, maybe try to find a way to get off this island."

It was hard to not tell Neil about Gabe working on the helicopter, but the plan would be in danger since the Overseer would hear if she talked, and she almost let it slip that she had been given the Daylight vaccine which rendered all versions of the T-Virus harmless, because apparently the unseen woman didn't know that. It was the only explanation for her bracelet not changing color when Claire got scared, but that old vaccine was so rare that the others didn't have that privilege.

"Neil, you saw what happened to Pedro, right?" The woman replied, again pointing to the tower. "Gina's dead, too, and who knows how many others, all while she's up there watching our every move. If we don't do something soon, we could all end up like them, so if the Overseer _is _up there, then that's where I'm going."

"Jesus… you and your brother." The Director said, laughing a little while shaking his head. "There's just no arguing with a Redfield, is there?"

"Hey, wait a second." Moira interrupted, also looking up at the tower. "Are we really going after her, just like that? I mean… isn't she gonna see us coming?"

That was a good point, but if the group decided not to go after the unseen woman, then the only other option was to run away, and there was no guarantee that they would be able to find a way off the island. More monsters like Pedro and the ones they had seen at the prison complex could have been hiding all over the island just waiting for humans to come walking by, but the Overseer could have more at the tower too, so there was just no knowing which way was safer. So what were they going to do?

"Okay, I got it." Claire said after a few moments of no decision being made. "Whenever my brother doesn't know what to do, he flips a coin, so… does anyone have a quarter, or anything I can flip?"

All of them searched through their pockets, but all came up empty, and there was nothing on the ground nearby that could be easily flipped, so the woman came up with a new solution. Reaching down and picking up a small pebble, she put it in one of her hands so that they couldn't see which one, and then held out both toward Moira. If the young woman picked the empty hand, then they would forget the tower and try to escape on their own, but if she chose the pebble, then the three of them would go and try to confront the Overseer.

There was a small part of Claire that wanted Moira to pick the empty hand, but the woman was glad when it was the pebble that appeared after the choice was made. All right, so they were going to storm the tower, just the three of them, and go after the unseen woman who probably had the whole place booby-trapped if not filled with those mutated people. Oh well, couldn't be any worse than Raccoon City or Rockfort Island… and at least this time it was impossible for Albert Wesker to show up.

Every now and then the woman would have flashbacks from her last encounter with her brother's enemy; how he had beaten and tortured her just to hurt Chris, and if not for Alexia being in Antarctica at the same time, the blond man might have just succeeded with, well… everything. He was dead, though… Albert Wesker was dead, for real this time, and Chris had killed Alexia back in 1998, or… wait a second… no… yeah, she was dead. For a second there the woman had forgotten that, but… whatever, moving on.

"Well, if we're gonna storm the tower, we gotta get there first." The Director commented, sighing after realizing just how far it was away. "Hey kid, your dad was always a pointman, you wanna take the lead?"

"Yeah… no, I'm a better follower." The young woman replied. "But do me a favor, and don't put me and him in the same sentence… Sir."

Claire knew that Neil had been joking, but Moira was really sensitive when it came to her father, and after what happened, who could blame her? This whole exchange created unnecessary tension, so the woman changed the subject by suggesting that they get moving, and since there were no threats in sight, at least for now, it was the perfect time to begin making their way across the city over to the tower where… hopefully… the Overseer awaited.


	16. Chapter 16 The Empty City

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Sixteen: The Empty City**

Even though there were still a few hours of daylight left, the abandoned cityscape was somehow even more creepy than both the prison complex and the fishing village had been, especially since there were so many signs that people had lived there… but no people around. It was like the whole place had been abandoned and left to rot away like that Chernobyl place after the accident back in the 80's. Now that Claire had both Moira and Neil to back her up, she was feeling a little better about their odds, not that this was any reason to relax, though.

What had happened to this place, the woman wondered as their small group walked past abandoned cars on what was probably once a main road? The vehicles that were just left there with driver-side doors open like the owners had run away, were older models that reminded Claire of the kind people drove back in the early 80's when she was a little kid, but their condition didn't seem like they had been sitting there for decades… then again, after the fall of the Soviet Union parts of the world that used to be USSR territory seemed to be cursed with always being behind the times.

"Hold up." Neil whispered, putting up his hand for them to stop. "Turns out this place isn't so empty after all."

The man had been staying ahead of them, moving behind all the different cars while staying crouched down, and once she and Moira got to where he was, dropping down to look underneath the vehicle at what was around the next corner, they were glad for the warning. There were people wandering around, dressed in what could have been normal clothing for the region, but their skin was discolored and partially burned like the ones that had attacked them inside the prison. However, they were all just standing around, not doing anything, although every few seconds one of them would snarl and turn toward a paper or something that blew in the wind.

"There's no _way_ we can get through there." The young woman commented as they both sat against the car. "There's gotta be more than a _dozen_ of those things."

"Moira's right, we can't take on that many with only two pistols." Claire whispered, looking around for another option. "Neil, what do you think about those buildings over there? Wanna try getting through?"

"Couldn't be any worse than trying the street." He replied after taking another look at the monsters blocking their path. "All right, we'll try that one over there; Redfield, you go first while I cover you, then the new kid, and I'll bring up the rear."

Neil winked at her, causing the woman to smile a little, and then he gave her the signal to get moving. As soon as it looked like none of the creatures were looking in their direction, Claire crouched down and quickly ran over to the covered entrance of the nearest building, with Moira following a few seconds later. Neil had to wait a little bit longer, since some of the monsters were looking at his hiding spot after an old newspaper floated past, but eventually he was about to rush over and join them as well.

"So far so good." Claire whispered, checking the latch on the door. "But there could be more inside, so we have to be quiet."

Both of them nodded, so with the man watching the rear and Moira in the middle, Claire very slowly and carefully pushed the door open. As expected, the hinges on the wooden door were rusted and very noisy, but that couldn't be helped, and thankfully nothing seemed to notice the drawn out _squeak_. Letting out a sigh of relief once the door was closed behind them, the woman took the lead again, but not before needing to take a minute for her eyes to adjust to the lower light levels.

Even though the sun was coming in through several small windows inside the rooms that were adjacent to the hallway that the small group was now standing in, it was nowhere near as illuminated as the outdoors had been, especially now that the sun was starting to set. It was all they had though, so it was more important than ever for all three of them to stay together, and Claire realized that this building must have been some kind of affordable living apartment complex at one time.

Each of the open doors on both sides of the hallway led into a small, one bedroom flat that was filled with rotting or broken wooden furniture like the homes back at the fishing village, but at least nobody appeared to be home. At this rate, as long as this building had a back door, it was going to take them right past all of the infected people out on the street, so Claire took a look back to make sure that the others were still behind her before rounding a corner, only to gasp in shock when the floor was no longer beneath her feet.

Unable to stop herself from crying out as she fell, the woman landed on a steep slope, rolling and sliding her way down into what must have been the building's basement because suddenly the smell of damp earth was all around. Coming to a stop on a dirt floor that was sprinkled with pieces of broken wood that was probably the collapsed floor, Claire groaned while getting up to her hands and knees, quickly picking up her fallen pistol and aiming it all around at her new surroundings… and then sighing with relief when she didn't see anyone among the rotting supports and debris piles.

"Redfield!" Neil called quietly down after her. "Redfield, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." The woman replied, using one hand to rub her sore lower back. "All right, I'm gonna need a hand."

Turning back the way she came, and then mentally kicking herself for not watching where she was going, Claire climbed back up the steep slope as much as she could, and then reached out her hand to grab Neil's, only to become confused when both the man and Moira shouted a warning to her at the same time. It wasn't until spotting a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye that the woman looked back and threw herself sideways just in time to avoid the large, heavy object that was being swung toward her.

Rolling across the dusty floor, and then scrambling to her feet, Claire saw that it was a really big hammer that had nearly crushed her skull… and the owner of the weapon was just as big as he lifted it back up. With skin that was discolored and partially burned looking like the others, this thing towered above any normal person, with muscles that were abnormally large, and some kind of mask over its face that kind of reminded her of the plague doctors she had seen in history books back in college.

_Bang! Bang!_ Aiming her pistol and firing two shots, at this point it didn't matter if the monsters outside knew they were there, and the plan was to run after shooting it in the leg two times made the monster lose its balance… except it didn't lose its balance, nor did it seem bothered by the wounds. Now holding its weapon with both hands, the hammer man was turning around while starting to take a step toward her, when suddenly Neil leapt off the edge of the upstairs floor.

_Thud_! Putting both of his boots into the monster's back at just the right time when its back was twisted, the hammer man was sent stumbling forward, falling on its face at the same time that Neil landed on the floor, but then the man had to roll out of the way after the monster recovered a lot faster than expected. Swinging its hammer sideways, the weapon just barely missed him, but instead of falling back toward the way they came in, the man moved deeper into the basement away from Claire.

"Redfield, get outta here!" He exclaimed as the monster followed, walking right past her as if she no longer mattered. "Stay with the new kid and get to the tower, I'll lose this thing and then catch up with you!"

_Bang! Bang!_ Firing two more ineffective shots into the hammer man's torso and then running away before the woman could argue with him, Neil ran toward the back of the basement while the monster stomped its way after him. Climbing up onto a large pile of debris, and then diving through one of the basement's broken windows, the monster growled angrily when it realized that it was too big to follow the man. So it turned around to resume attacking Claire, but by this time the woman was back on the first floor after Moira pulled her up the slope.

No longer concerned with moving quietly, the two of them started running back down the hallway to try another route, only to both scream when part of the floor in front of them was destroyed from below by a blow from that big hammer. Moira tried to back away, but the woman grabbed her arm and forced her to jump over the new hole, only a second before the hammer's next hit broke through the area where they had just been standing. With the monster free to move all around downstairs, and the two of them limited by walls and doors, Claire realized that it was only a matter of time before they were caught, so she decided to take a page out of Neil's book.

Grabbing the young woman's arm again when she tried to go the other way, she pulled Moira into one of the apartments just as the hammer broke through where she would have been, and then together they dove through the window. However, unlike the one that Neil used to escape, this one was not broken, requiring both women to break through with a loud crash, landing on the ground outside hard, and then covering their faces while tiny pieces of broken glass rained down on them.

As expected, the monsters in the street were alerted by this, and one of them came running to investigate, snarling and growling as he frantically looked around for the source of the disturbance. Fortunately for the women, though, they had landed next to what remained of a short wooden fence, hiding them from sight while the monster stood right over them. It looked left and right, grunting and letting out a roar, with Claire putting her hand over Moira's mouth to keep her panicked breathing quiet… and then the monster turned and walked away.

"Come on, we gotta go." The woman said, letting go of her. "Stay low and follow me."

Crouching down and then taking a risk by running out in the open to the next covered position by another abandoned car, Claire realized that sneaking through the empty city was not going to be as easy as she hoped, and the two women were still a long way from the tower.


	17. Chapter 17 An Unlikely Survivor

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Seventeen: An Unlikely Survivor**

There was no sign of Neil as Claire and Moira continued making their way through the infected city, and it wasn't like they could just call out for him without alerting all of the monsters around to their own location. At that moment the woman would have given just about anything to have a radio or a phone or something, since these bracelets only seemed to be a direct link to the Overseer, so all the two of them could do was hope to run into him again at some point while hiding behind another abandoned car.

Progress was being made on their journey to the Overseer's tower, but more and more attention had to be paid to their surroundings as they got deeper into the city, not just because the sun would be down in a short time, but because there were more and more of those infected people around. At least some of the streetlights were on, as were a lot of lights that they could see inside of the buildings, so there would be no stumbling around in the dark… although it meant that the monsters could still see them too.

"Jesus, they're everywhere." Claire commented, taking a quick look at all the figures in the street ahead. "It's like Raccoon City all over again."

Just like back in 1998, these infected people were lurching around aimlessly while waiting for a victim to come by and shock their systems back to life. Men, women, and even little children had been infected by T-Phobos, all of them slowly shambling into and out of the nearby buildings… but the speed at which they could move when hunting actually made the woman miss the zombies created by the original T-Virus. Sure, there might have been thousands of them in Raccoon City, but at least a person could run away fairly easily as long as they didn't get themselves cornered.

"Well, we're not getting through that way." Moira whispered, tightly clutching the crowbar she had been carrying since the prison. "Do you think… do you think we should try another building?"

Claire didn't like the idea of passing through another one of the city's crumbling buildings, especially after her little encounter with the hammer man inside of the last one. Too bad for her that they two of them didn't really have a choice, so with Moira going first and then the woman bringing up the rear, both woman climbed in through the nearest broken window of a building that was a bit larger than the apartment complex. It wasn't like they _wanted_ to go through the window, especially with the part about Claire's arm slipping during the middle of her climb, causing her to fall onto an old wooden desk that broke under her weight with a loud _crash_.

"Are you okay, Claire?" The young woman asked, taking her arm to help her up. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, I'm good." Claire replied, more concerned with something outside hearing the commotion than the throbbing pain in her side. "Come on, we can't stay anywhere for too long, here."

As she was saying, the two of them would have preferred to use the door, but it was too close to the street where a half dozen of the infected were gathered. Thankfully, there were no sounds to indicate that they had been heard, so the woman took her time looking out the next door before to check for dangers before moving on. The room she had crashed into looked like some kind of a storage room, filled with rotting furniture and old junk just like everywhere else on this island, but after taking a few quiet steps down the hallway Claire stopped… for a second there it almost sounded like something was moving up ahead around the next corner.

Putting her finger to her lips so Moira would stay quiet, the woman took another couple silent steps until she was at the corner, peeking around into the next hallway to see… a little girl? Of all the things that Claire had expected to see around that corner, it definitely wasn't a kid in some kind of nightgown, who was even younger looking than Sherry Birkin had been when she found her in the police station way back when… but there she was. The kid was sneaking around, holding a teddy bear that was about half her size, and poking around through every cabinet and cupboard that she came to, probably looking for food.

"Moira, there's a little girl over there." The woman whispered, pointing to her bracelet. "And she's got one of these on her wrist?"

"A little girl, like… little _kid_ little?" The young woman asked, clearly not expecting to hear that. "Are you saying the Overseer is trying to scare little _kids_ like this, too? That's just… Claire, that's too fucked up for words."

Yes, it certainly was… God, the thought of a little kid that age having to go through something like this… and she was alone, too, which probably meant that the little girl was scared out of her mind. It was going to be a lot harder now to get through the city undetected, especially since the Overseer had to be confronted regardless of what was happening, but it wasn't like they could just leave the kid to fend for herself. So after taking a deep breath to make sure she appeared as calm and non-threatening as possible, Claire stepped around the corner… only to have the little girl take off running as soon as she saw her.

"Wait!" The woman tried to call quietly while starting after her. "Come back!"

Of course, the scared kid didn't listen, just like Sherry back in Raccoon City, and Claire never ceased to be amazed at how fast small children could run when an adult was trying to help them. Darting down the next hallway, and then vanishing through a door, the woman followed, but instead of finding the girl after rushing blindly into the larger room, she found herself slamming right into one of the infected. With both of them caught off guard, about a second passed before either of them reacted; the partially burned monster starting to roar and grabbing for her at the same time that kicked it in the side of the leg.

This infected person had been female, so its build was smaller, and therefore easier for the woman to knock off balance with that kick. Dropping the monster to one knee, Claire didn't want to draw the attention of anything bigger that might have been lurking around, so she grabbed the monster by the back of the head, and slammed her knee into its face as hard as she could. Not that the woman ever had trouble fighting a man, it was just nice once in a while to not have to worry about an opponent trying using their size against her… because that could really suck for her if it worked.

Once the infected person was down, Claire took out her pistol, and struck it in the back of the head with a loud crack while the monster was trying to get up, and then she dove onto its back, doing her best to pin the raging monster down while continuing to strike it in the back of the head with an increasingly wet sounding _whack-whack-whack_ until the thing finally stopped moving. Completely out of breath, and having been sprayed a little with the monster's infected blood, the woman was still really tense as she heaved in and out, her hair having fallen down in her face as she looked over and spotted the kid hiding under a fallen dresser that was leaning on the wall.

"Oh… there you are… where did you… come from?" Claire spoke between breaths, the kid scooting away as she moved closer. "Did that… woman bring you… here?"

"Jesus, Claire, back off a little." Moira said, getting in front of her after finally catching up. "You look like that chick from _The Devil's Rejects_, you're gonna scare the kid to death like that."

Happy to take a break and catch her breath while the young woman tried to coax the kid out of hiding, the woman wiped the discolored blood from her face and then tied her hair back up while Moira actually did a good job in getting the little girl to calm down. Using the fact that she had a bracelet like that too, and saying that it kind of made them like sisters, the young woman even asked what her teddy bear's name was, which got the kid to give Moira her hand so that she would come out of hiding… although Claire thought that _Lottie_ was an odd choice for a teddy bear's name.

Like everyone else who was forcibly brought to the island, the little girl's bracelet had been drilled right through her arm, and like Moira's its indicator light was orange… God, what kind of monster would kidnap and infect a little kid? What the hell kind of benefit could there possibly be for doing such a thing? It wasn't like the kid was going to understand all that, so Moira asked her instead about where she had gotten such a cute teddy bear, obviously trying to keep the kid's mind off what was happening around them.

"The nice man gave her to me." The little girl said, hugging the bear tighter. "The terra saver man when he brought me to the group home… I was real little, and but there were a bunch of us from Terragrigia."

Oh wow, Claire thought as the little kid said that, first she loses her family during the Terragrigia Panic, and now this… at least she must have been too young to really remember what happened when Veltro unleased the T-Abyss virus, but the woman clearly remembered when her organization had started evacuating all of the children from the doomed city… her first assignment was helping them to get resettled, and it had been a tear-jerker when some of the older ones started asking where their parents were.

"Well, you and Lottie are _so_ brave to be able to keep away from those monsters all by yourself." The young woman continued, kneeling down with her and patting the bear on the shoulder. "It's funny, I know Lottie's name, but I don't know yours; I'm Moira Burton, and this is my friend, Claire Redfield… I know she's not a teddy bear, but at least I don't have to carry her around."

The little girl laughed at this joke, as did Claire, and it finally made the kid open enough to tell them that her name was Natalia Korda. It surprised the woman to see how good Moira was with kids, along with the realization that her own skills in that area had faded over time… hopefully they would be able to keep Natalia safe… as well as themselves.


	18. Chapter 18 That's Cheating

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Eighteen: That's Cheating**

Movement through the infected city became both easier and more difficult as the sun finished setting over the next couple hours, covering the island with a darkness that was only resisted by the functioning half of the street lights outside and the quarter of the ones that functioned inside the buildings. However, as the unlikely trio moved toward the center of the urban sprawl, where the Overseer's tower loomed high above all other structures, the buildings became less available.

Giving way to more roads and a couple parking garages as if this place had once been the center of the island's government… which by the looks of the place was completely possible, the other buildings kept their distance in a circle around the tower, even though the infected people didn't get the same memo. Sure, there weren't as many of the rage monsters in this one particular area, but the lack of cover made up for it, and now Claire had to find some way forward that wouldn't get them all killed.

"I don't see a door on this side." The woman said, squinting to try and see more clearly with the street lights. "There's a lot of monsters, though, and if they see us we're in trouble."

The three of them were ducked down behind an overturned truck that was on the edge of where the buildings stopped, allowing them to come out a few more meters to take a look around without drawing attention to themselves. Moira was making sure that the little girl stayed well out of sight, while Natalia hugged her teddy bear tightly, but what Claire was really impressed by was the fact that the little girl hadn't complained about being tired or hungry even once. As expected, she appeared frightened by what was happening, but not panicked like Pedro had been… maybe that was why she hadn't mutated yet.

"Natalia, we're gonna have to look around the building to find a way in, okay?" The young woman explained to her once the decision was made to move on. "So, we're gonna be really quiet and do what Claire tells us, right?"

The little girl nodded, hugging Lottie tight while Moira held her other hand, and this time Claire went first. Staying low and moving from cover to cover like Neil had done, the woman kept moving until she crossed the street and hid behind a dumpster. Waiting until the signal that it was clear to move, Moira led the little girl, both of them crouching down as much as they could while ducking first behind an old park bench, then some trash cans, and finally over the old crosswalk to where Claire was waiting.

Naturally, it had taken the two of them longer to get there since the kid had shorter legs, and neither of them was as tall as the woman, but now they had reached the corner of the base of the Overseer's building… and sure enough there was an entrance. It was down the street, at the exact halfway point of the section, with the double doors just barely visible in the illumination from the nearby streetlights. Of course, the street ahead was being patrolled by more of the infected people, including several children that randomly snarled and jerked their attention toward anything that moved, just like the adults.

"I saw some of the other kids turn into those things." Natalia whispered, again hugging the large bear. "Is that gonna happen to us, too?"

"No, sweetheart, that's _not_ gonna happen to us." Moira replied, kneeling down with her. "All we have to do is keep calm and use our heads, and everything's gonna be fine… and besides, Claire here's been killing monsters for like twenty years, and the ones here aren't shit compared to what she saw in Raccoon City."

Doing some quick math in her head of how many years had passed between 1998 and 2012, Claire didn't feel like arguing the fact that it had only been fourteen years and not twenty, nor did she make the two of them aware that the _hammer man_ thing in the basement of that first building had scared the crap out of her. If it helped Natalia to believe that the woman was an unstoppable badass, then so be it, but Claire didn't feel very unstoppable at the moment… even though she smiled and gave the little girl a not very convincing thumbs up.

Honestly, most of the reason that she had gotten through Raccoon City and Rockfort Island was pure dumb luck, that and help from her friends, many of whom hadn't been so lucky. It was still hard work, and there were a lot of close calls, like when she had been captured by Brian Irons and Sherry Birkin saved her life, or when Albert Wesker was beating her senseless and Elza Walker jumped in. Now here she was in yet another outbreak scenario, with two people counting on her, and the woman somehow thinking that it was a good idea to go confront the Overseer.

"_So, you're really just going to come waltzing in through my front door_?" The unseen woman's voice said through the bracelet, making all of them jump. "_I'm flattered that you want to see me so badly, Claire, but most people would've tried to find a way to get off the island_."

"You expect me to believe there's a quicker way than dealing with you?" Claire replied quietly but defiantly. "I figure if there was an easy way to leave, then the people of this island wouldn't have all gotten infected… why did you do this to them, anyway? Why sneak into a peaceful community and then repeat Umbrella's mistakes?"

She didn't actually expect the Overseer to answer these questions, so the woman was surprised to find out that the unseen woman hadn't _snuck in_ at all, in fact according to her the people of the island had welcomed her with open arms. In addition to purchasing several properties around the island, the Overseer had created hundreds of jobs, both in the mines that hadn't been properly funded in decades, and also researchers for what she told them was a study of the local wildlife. Turns out that this _wildlife_ had included people, but the economy had become so good that no one noticed a few of their own missing… until it was too late.

"_It's almost shocking how some new clothes and a few fancy cars can blind people to what's happening around them_." The unseen woman continued. "_Oh, there were a few who spoke up about things being 'too good to be true', but they were shunned by their own government, and, well… its best to silence the loudest voices first, don't you agree_?"

"No… that's… that's _sick_." Claire said back, getting angry. "You people are all the same, you know that? Greedy, selfish _assholes_ who only care about themselves and how much money they can make, no matter how many innocent lives are lost in the process. Well, we're coming for you, _Overseer_… and then you and me are gonna have this conversation again."

She expected the unseen woman to get angry or defensive in reaction to this threat, but instead she just laughed, saying that Claire was just the most adorable thing that she had ever seen. She didn't lock the doors of the building, nor did she sound any alarms that would draw the attention of the nearby monsters, in fact the Overseer activated two fancy looking glass light fixtures that were on both sides of the double doors as if it were an open invitation for them to come and make their challenge.

"_My door is always open for you, Claire_." The unseen woman said, still laughing a little. "_Attacking me will only cause your little friends to serve my purpose sooner, and as for you… oh Claire, the plans I have for you_."

Gritting her teeth with anger at how smug and uncaring the Overseer was, Claire was about to go running down the street and through those doors right now, but her attack was stopped when a new sound reached her ears… a sound that meant she might not have to deal with the unseen woman at all. At first she wasn't sure that she had heard it at all, but then it got steadily louder until a helicopter flew overhead. With searchlight shining down on the streets as it moved back and forth in a search pattern, she could hear Gabe's voice calling out for her and Moira on the loudspeaker… a voice that brought a smile to her face.

"_Did you hear that, you all seeing bitch_?!" The pilot called out as he circled the tower. "_I'm picking up my friends and getting off this island, and there's not a God damn thing you can do about it_!"

"_Well, you certainly seem to have outdone yourself, Mr. Chavez_." The Overseer immediately replied over all of their bracelets. "_But as the Americans say… hold my beer_."

Just as Claire was about to start trying to signal the pilot so that he could come and pick them up, one of the thrusters on the helicopter suddenly burst into flames, making Gabe have to fight to keep the vehicle under control. Meanwhile, the unseen woman continued speaking, asking them if they really thought that she didn't know about the helicopter near the Wossek? Admittedly, the Overseer never thought that anyone would actually be able to get it to fly again, but that didn't mean that she didn't prepare for it.

Just as it was starting to look like the pilot was getting the helicopter under control again, there was another small explosion of flames, this time from the control rotor at the back, causing the vehicle to begin spiraling out of control. In a matter of seconds, Claire's hope that they were all about to be rescued had turned into despair as the out of control helicopter flew farther away, spinning around faster and getting even closer to the ground until the woman lost sight of it completely… feeling like someone punched her in the stomach when she heard the distant explosion.

"Nice try, Mr. Chavez." The Overseer continued once the noise from the crash died down. "But cheaters never prosper, and I would never let anyone take my precious little Claire away from me. So come on, girls… the men are out of the way… and my door is open if you still want to do this."

"You bitch." Claire hissed angrily as all the nearby monsters ran off toward the crash as if the noise had attracted them. "Oh, we're gonna do this, all right, and…

"Claire!" Moira exclaimed urgently. "Where did she go?! Where's Natalia?!"

Stopping her rant once she heard this, and turning around, the woman was at a loss for words when she discovered that not only had Gabe just been killed by the Overseer right in front of them… but the little girl had just disappeared.


	19. Chapter 19 Following the Trail

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Nineteen: Following the Trail**

"Edward Thompson." Barry read, looking at the faded identification badge. "A member of TerraSave just like Moira… damn it, this is was why I told her not to get involved, but the girl just never listens."

"_You know she gets that stubbornness from you, right_?" Tobias's voice replied through the headset. "_In fact, I don't recall you ever listening to your father when we were kids_."

The big man smirked for a second, remembering all of the things that he and Tobias used to get yelled at for when they were in high school, but then he shook his head and found himself getting angry all of a sudden. He didn't want to remember what good friends he and the detective had been before the Raccoon City outbreak, because every time Barry tried to think about it, his memories went right back to what happened onboard the Starlight, where Tobias and his wife infected and killed hundreds of innocent people.

So he diverted the conversation back to the discovery of the mostly rotted corpse on the ground in front of him, claiming that right now was the time to be more concerned with the present, specifically what the detective could tell him about the body. Honestly, it would have been easier to examine it if Tobias had been there in person, but for now all he could say was that Mr. Thompson had been lying there for several months undisturbed, but that it looked like he had been mauled to death by an animal… or more likely one of those mutated creatures that the big man had already encountered.

The good news was that this meant he was on the right track, which was great after spending the past few hours wandering through the dense forest on this island after leaving the communications tower. Eventually there had been signs of life again, starting with a few abandoned shacks that were falling apart, but getting more numerous the farther he walked down the trail, and it was only because the sun was starting to rise that the big man was able to see the body slumped down in the tall grass at all. As much as Barry hated to leave him there, not much could be done, so he continued on until the trail opened up into a very large clearing.

"Barry look, there it is!" Natalia exclaimed, pointing upward excitedly. "That's the tower Moira was trying to get to when I was with her!"

He had to step over to the left a bit to see what she was talking about, but there, looking like it was really high up and far beyond the clearing ahead, there was some kind of structure that looked like… something hastily slapped down on top of a skyscraper. Maybe it was because they were so far away, or maybe his eyes were just going bad now that he had reached the big _five-oh_, but from where Barry was standing the _tower_ looked more like a half-finished ruin. There were big pieces missing from the sides, with only some of the metal skeleton remaining in its place, and it was like someone had knocked the whole top right off.

But, before he and the little girl could even think of investigating that tower, there was the clearing to deal with, as well as the seemingly abandoned fishing village contained within. Most of the houses and shacks around the place were intact, although long abandoned and neglected, but there was a larger structure at the very center; a wooden building that had two floors, making it the tallest thing around, but the place was wrecked, and Barry stepped on a partially broken wooden sign that read _WOSSEK_ as he went in to investigate.

"Wow, someone really did a number on this place." He commented, looking at the destroyed sections of wall and broken, overturned tables. "Hey, look at this… bullet casings."

"_9mm… and pretty old by the look of them_." Tobias's voice said when he picked up a casing. "_Years old, actually, like some leftover stock from the 90's or something… I'm surprised they even fired_."

Continuing his analysis of the partially destroyed Wossek, the detective noticed that although there were several bullet casings on the floor, the walls had been destroyed purely by brute force. This assumption was supported by the small cracks in the floor that led up to a destroyed section of wall, and then how there were more 9mm casings in the dirt outside, along with a… spent flashbang grenade? Apparently something big had been inside the tavern, and it chased whoever else was inside around until the flashbang was used to escape, because that was where the trail of weapons ended.

"Was Moira here when this happened?" Barry asked, looking back and forth as if hoping to see a sign of her. "Did the thing that was after her get stopped?"

"I don't know, Barry, I'm sorry." The little girl answered. "I didn't meet her until she was a lot closer to the tower."

Well, if this was definitely the way that his daughter had gone, then the big man's only solution was to keep moving. He refused to believe that Moira was dead, that just couldn't be true, so Barry turned in the general direction of the tower and started searching for another trail out of the village, while Natalia struggled to keep up. Tobias warned him over the radio that he needed to slow down, since the big man wasn't even looking around at his surroundings for dangers as he left the little girl farther behind, but he just wasn't hearing it.

"You might not realize this, Tobias, but my little girl's in danger." Barry angrily replied, looking around the perimeter for a road or a trail. "Maybe if she was _your_ daughter, you'd understand, but there's no time to just stand around taking in the sites."

"_Right, because I don't know anything about losing a kid, huh_?" The detective replied with some anger of his own. "_And you wanna talk about standing around wasting time? Remind me, how many months was she gone before you changed your mind about wanting my help_?"

Stopping right where he was, the big man realized that there was nothing he could say back to any of the things Tobias was telling him. Back in 1998 the detective's wife and son had been eaten alive by zombies at their cabin in the Arklay Mountains, and even though he had asked everyone in STARS for help in bringing those responsible to justice, Tobias had become completely unhinged. So no one helped him, causing the detective to form Task Force Arklay… resulting in him becoming the monster that infected the Starlight years later.

And yes, if Barry hadn't told Tobias that he didn't want his help finding Moira, then it was possible that this island could have been found months ago, but… the big man was scared what would happen if the detective got too close to his family. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if his wife wasn't around, because Leon Kennedy had told him what a surprisingly big help Tobias had been to him in Spain, but Barry remembered the kind of hold that Gillette had over him on the Starlight…

"Barry, are you okay?" Natalia asked, bringing his thoughts back into the present. "Are you worried about Moira?"

"Yeah… but I'm okay now." He replied, taking several deep breaths to get himself under control. "I can't help her if I can't stay focused… I know that now… come on kid, stay close to me."

God Barry felt like an asshole for running off like that, and leaving the little girl behind… okay, gotta stay focused… one step at a time. At the eastern most edge of the village was a trail that was becoming heavily overgrown, running along the island's coast, but seeming to head toward the distant tower. For about an hour as the morning sun rose higher in the sky, the big man thought he had made a mistake, since the trail curved back into the forest and up into a bunch of tall hills that were difficult to climb. But then the trees started to thin back out as the trail curved back down.

Just like when they were approaching the village, signs of civilization started to appear, beginning with a metal barrier at the end of the trail, which the two of them stepped over onto a paved road. This was a hell of a lot easier than walking up some rocky trail, but now that the forest was giving way to an urban sprawl up ahead, they were going to have to move more carefully since there wasn't as much cover. No more trees now, just small buildings that were just as neglected and falling apart as everything else on the island… and… was that a _helicopter_ crashed into the lower side of one of them?

"Barry, wait." Natalia warned, pulling on his sleeve just as he was about to go investigate. "Barry, there's something there."

Pointing upward toward the top of one of the nearby buildings, the big man drew his pistol, but didn't see anything when he tried to follow where her finger was pointing. Barry's first thought was that it was one of those invisible things from the lumber yard, but the little girl said that it wasn't. All she could tell him was that it was shaped differently than the _big bug_ that had attacked him after the prison, and even though Natalia was looking all around for it, the thing had just vanished, like the one that was originally following them before.

"Tobias, can you see anything?" Barry asked, looking all around so that the camera could catch it all. "Natalia keeps telling me that we're being followed."

"_I can really only see what you see_." The detective replied, obviously limited by the camera. "_Right now the only thing that looks out of place is that helicopter, so maybe you can find another clue in the wreckage, or at least a better vantage point to see what's around you_."

Fair enough, the big man thought while carefully making his way across the road, into the start of the urban sprawl. So far everything was silent, with no movement at all except for the rustling of the wind as it blew random pieces of trash around. The helicopter was only a few buildings from the start, so it wasn't long before the two of them reached it, but the thing was only a long burnt out shell, with the only point of interest being the pilot. A rotting corpse just like Edward had been, this guy looked like half of him had been burned, with the rest… now what the hell?

The pilot's right arm looked larger than the rest of him, as if it had started to mutate right before he died, and… and judging by the knife that was buried in his forearm, the poor bastard had tried to cut it off to stop the spread. In the end it was apparently the crash that killed him, but if he had really been infected, then at least the guy hadn't had to suffer with it like that girl who had attacked him back at the prison.

"_You… you, I've been waiting for you_!" A deep voice suddenly declared, echoing off the buildings. "_You've finally come… it's been so long_!"

Before the big man could ask Natalia or Tobias if they could see where the voice was coming from, the answer was provided when something big jumped down from the roof of the building above the helicopter, landing on its feet just in front of the vehicle's frame with a loud thud… and then roaring as it turned toward them.


	20. Chapter 20 Monsters

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty: Monsters**

Moving away from the roaring monster, and telling Natalia to run to safety, Barry aimed his pistol while getting a good look at the abomination standing before him. It might have been human once, looking partially like a man of Hispanic descent, but its whole body was too big, with deformed arms that had claws on the end, and looking partially rotted away like that girl from the prison. The edges of bones were visible at parts of its face and torso as it got closer, but the most disturbing part of it was the eyes… not the ones in its head that had rotted away, but the huge, glowing red ones that had grown all over its body.

"_You are false_." It growled, stopping to take a look back at the helicopter. "_Gabe… Gabe was going to save us… but he's gone… everyone is gone_."

"Gabe?" Barry asked, pointing to the wrecked vehicle. "Are you talking about the pilot? Was he your friend?"

Like everyone else on the island, this monster had one of those bracelets bolted right through its wrist, and the indicator light was glowing red like Natalia's. Instead of attacking him, the abomination turned and slowly stomped its way over to where the pilot's body was still strapped into the seat of the helicopter, before making a sound that was almost like it was crying. Over the radio Tobias's voice was encouraging the big man to sneak away while it was distracted, but Barry was wondering… if this thing was still human enough to speak and cry at the loss of a friend… well, it was worth a shot to try communicating.

"_Gabe, he tried… tried to fly away_." The monster growled, slowly turning back toward Barry. "_I let him down… I got scared… the Overseer, she… her virus… I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm going to kill you now_."

Roaring again while raising its claws, the abomination sprinted toward the bit man at full speed, which was a lot faster than he guessed that it would have been able to move. _Bang_! Suddenly a gunshot rang out, causing the monster to yelp like a wounded dog when one of the glowing red eyes on its side was destroyed, and making its claw swipe go so wild that it missed Barry completely. Snapped out of his paralysis, the big man backed off, aiming his pistol and firing several shots, most of which hit places on its body that didn't have those eyes, but one bullet did.

Like when the first one was hit, the abomination yelped as a stream of discolored fluid seeped out of the destroyed eye on its chest, clutching its wound and stumbling sideways where it fell against an abandoned car. It seemed like he was going to need something a little bit bigger than a 9mm for this fight, so he holstered it and took out his trusty old .357 revolver. _BANG_! Firing a single shot with the bigger weapon, the monster fell backwards as the large caliber bullet took off a small part of the top of its skull, but then it turned back around and grabbed onto the car.

"Holy… shit." The big man said as the car was very slowly lifted over its head.

His first instinct was to run away, even though he wasn't sure if he was fast enough to dive out of the way once the vehicle was tossed, but then Barry realized that in doing this, the monster had left all of the eyes on its body completely exposed. So he aimed quickly and fired, causing the abomination to yelp again when the only eye on its left leg was destroyed… but then that yelp was cut off when the full weight of the car came down on its head with a _crash_ that drowned out all other noises.

The big man's hands were shaking as he frantically reloaded the revolver, mentally kicking himself for having brought so few bullets for it, but then slamming the cylinder shut and preparing to face the monster as soon as it got up… except it didn't. Several seconds passed, hell maybe whole minutes, he wasn't sure, but during all that time the monster just remained there pinned underneath the car. Well, it was a pretty big sedan looking like it came from the 80's, but still he wasn't about to turn away until he was sure that the monster was down for good.

And where had that other shot come from? The little girl wasn't armed, that much was obvious as she slowly came out of hiding and walked over to him, so what the hell happened? Once Natalia got there, she asked him why he was just standing there staring at it, and of course Barry could only reply that he wanted to make sure that it was dead. According to her it was, since she could still see it, but not _see_ it anymore, whatever that meant, and this whole time that he was standing there it still hadn't moved.

"_Barry, I don't think it's getting up_." Tobias's voice said through the radio. "_And it sounds like the kid can tell when the virus inside something dies… makes it a lot harder for them to sneak up on you, that's for sure_."

The fact that Natalia could see infected things through walls and at night was crazy in itself, the kind of thing that people would probably want to study… not that he would ever let her become some lab rat or anything. But if the eye monster really was dead, then it was time to move on. Checking all of his weapons to make sure that his ammo was full on each, the big man led the way, hiding around the corners of buildings and ducking behind cars while slowly advancing through the surprisingly empty city.

He didn't dare try going through any of the buildings, since they looked like they were going to fall over if the wind blew too hard, but so far except for the eye monster, there were no threats to speak of. Plenty of bodies littered the streets, increasing in number the farther the two of them walked into the urban sprawl, and they were partially rotted like all the others, some even with those blades attached to their limbs like the thing he had fought in the lumberyard. But these weren't attacking; their bodies were twisted and mangled, left lying all over the streets in unnatural positions as if something had come through and cleaned house.

The good news about all this was that there were literally no obstacles between them and the tower, making Barry wonder if the eye monster had been responsible for this rampage. Either way, it allowed him to walk right through the city unchallenged, with the ruined tower appearing to get taller and more imposing as they approached. The big man took a peek into the windows of some of the buildings as they passed, but none of the lights were working, so it was impossible to see what was in there. Come to think of it, none of the streetlights were on either… no wait, there was one that was on… but then it sparked and went out.

"Over there's where I met Moira." Natalia said pointing at one of the more worn out buildings. "She was real nice to me, and held my hand when I was scared."

"Yeah, she's got a good heart." Barry replied, looking at that same place as they passed. "Maybe she saw some of Polly in you; that's her little sister."

Not a lot was said after that, with the big man's thoughts moving into regret at how his and Moira's relationship had been for the past few years, and he swore to himself that once he found her and they got out of this place, things were going to be different. He didn't care what it took, he was going to be close with his daughter again like they had been before, but first Moira had to be found… and the first step to that was entering what Natalia referred to as the Overseer's tower.

"So, how did you and Moira get separated?" The big man asked as they approached. "Doesn't seem like her to just leave a kid like you all alone out here."

"She didn't; the nice man came and got me." The little girl explained. "He took me to safety when the helicopter was crashing, just like he did at Terragrigia… he was always there for me, but I haven't seen him since then."

Well, maybe they would find this mysterious _nice man_ as well, but Barry had a feeling that he met the same fate as the others he had found so far from TerraSave. Surprisingly, the door to the tower wasn't guarded, barricaded, or even locked when he tried the latch, allowing Barry to simply push the double doors open into a place that was… not what he expected. As far as the base of operations for an evil mastermind, this place looked more like one of those abandoned car factories in Detroit with graffiti all over the walls and piles of debris that had long ago rained down from the ceiling. Jesus, it was like someone had set off a _bomb_ in there.

"It… it's all different." The little girl said, looking around as if she were confused. "It didn't use to be like this, but the important stuff was all upstairs, I think. Come on, I'll show you."

Now she was the one who took off running, and Barry struggled to keep up as Natalia led him around several large piles of debris, only to stop at the bottom of an old stairwell when she saw that the stairs had been destroyed. All right, so they weren't going up there any time soon, and the big man was about to turn his attention elsewhere, when something caught his eye. Lying on the floor in front of him was some kind of painted portrait that was probably on the wall before, and when he picked it up to brush the dust off, a knot formed in his stomach as he saw what the picture was.

"Wesker." He growled angrily, looking at the sitting blond haired man in sunglasses. "Who in their right mind would keep a picture like this?"

"I know, she's really scary." Natalia whimpered, moving closer to him. "I don't like her."

Standing next to the blond man in the picture was a stern looking woman with long blonde hair, dressed all in white. She wasn't bad looking or anything, Barry thought while looking at her, hell she might even be _cute_ if she smiled instead of wearing that frown… so the big man asked the little girl if it was the woman standing next to Wesker that she was scared of, and why.

"No, _she's_ Wesker, not him." Natalia explained, pointing to the blonde woman. "You know, Alex Wesker… the Overseer."

"Are you telling me there's _two_ Weskers?" The big man asked, suddenly feeling dirty for finding her attractive. "That's… that's crazy… you figure their parents would've learned their lesson after the first one."

Natalia laughed at this joke, only she sounded hoarse and raspy as if she were upset at the same time… hold on a second, the little girl wasn't laughing, she was holding onto Barry while burying her face into his jacket. That laughter was coming from somewhere else, and it was awful as it echoed off the concrete walls of the tower, but where was it coming from? If it was another monster, the little girl's power to see it was useless as long as she was trying to hide, but Natalia looked so scared that she was shaking, and there was no response from Tobias on the radio… damn it, must have been the walls blocking the signal.

"You finally came." A raspy, almost female voice that was really deep at the same time spoke from behind. "I knew you'd come back to me… Natalia."

Barry knew that there was something awful behind him, so as it spoke he was slowly reaching for his pistol, then drawing it as he spun around… only to be knocked off his feet when the arm of a cloaked figure struck him so hard that he found himself rolling across the dusty floor while the figure started walking toward the little girl.


	21. Chapter 21 The Face of Evil

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty One: The Face of Evil**

Rolling several times before coming to a stop, Barry coughed and groaned as he tried to get up, dazed from the hit he had taken to the point where the big man couldn't get past his hands and knees. The dizziness faded quickly, allowing him to get a good look at the figure that had attacked him as it slowly walked toward Natalia; larger than a normal person but not gigantic, severely hunchbacked, and walking with a heavy limp. This creature rasped for breath, even with the metal respirator that it was wearing over most of its face, and although most of its features were hidden by the large cloak it was wearing over its back, he could see that its skin was discolored and burned like the others.

"_I knew you would come, but I don't know why you did_?" The monster said after breathing in hoarsely. "_Are you here to torment me, is that it? Are you here to rub your success in my face_?"

"I don't… I don't know what you're talking about." The little girl whispered, her voice trembling as she backed away. "I didn't come here to do _anything_."

Letting out an irritated snort after hearing this, the hooded figure pulled back its hood to reveal several strands of long blonde hair hanging down from on top of its discolored head, and then there was a hissing sound as it slowly removed the respirator from over its nose and mouth. Dropping the breathing apparatus to the floor and coughing a little, the figure stepped into the light to reveal that its face was partially human with familiar features that were now a stark contrast to its bulging right eye and sharpened teeth.

"Alex?" Natalia gasped in shock upon recognizing her. "Is… is that really you?"

"Alex? You mean, Alex _Wesker_?" Barry asked, taking out his pistol and aiming it at the figure. "_This_ is the same woman in that portrait? The Overseer?"

"_Nothing gets past you, does it big boy_?" The mutated Alex replied, turning toward him and smiling. "_Turns out my little experiment didn't go as... well as I planned, but setbacks are to be… expected in groundbreaking science_."

The big man didn't care about any of that, and he was even willing to set aside his urge to shoot her right there just for having the name Wesker, in order to find out what happened to Moira. However, when Barry demanded to know what had happened to her, once again interrupting the figure's slow advance toward the little girl, the mutated Alex just laughed at him, her bulging red eye spinning around wildly in her skull as she told him that the _ugly little boy_ was dead… dead and buried along with the rest of the fools who dwelled on this pathetic little island.

"You… you killed my daughter?" The big man asked in a startled whisper as his pistol lowered a bit. "You killed… my little Moira?"

"_Ah, so you're her father, that… explains why you're here_." The figure chuckled between labored breaths, now turning toward him completely. "_She hated you, you know, she… she expressed this to my precious Claire… my Claire... my Claire is lost to me, and the world… the world is better off without your… spawn. That ugly little… boy_."

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Suddenly seeing red upon hearing these words, Barry screamed as he aimed at the figure's face and started pulling the trigger, hitting the mutated Alex several times in the chest and one good one in the cheek, each shot making the monster twitch heavily as if causing it real pain. It didn't go down by the time his clip was empty, though, with the figure smiling again and starting to stand back up as soon as he was out of bullets. This weapon just wasn't cutting it, and he wanted this bitch to suffer, so the big man holstered the pistol and started reaching for the rifle on his back just as the figure came at him.

Moving across the room with surprising speed, not because it was actually moving quickly, its legs were just a lot longer than they should have been, allowing the mutated Alex to grab him before he could even unsling the rifle. Even though Barry was an incredibly strong man, the figure was able to grab his upper arms and pin them down to his sides before lifting the big man up so that the two of them were at eye level. He kicked and struggled to break free of her grip, even going so far as to head butt the monster when its face got close enough, but this did nothing but make the mutated Alex chuckle… and then it gave him a head butt of its own.

"_I want you to know that I really… enjoyed hurting your daughter_." The monster said while Barry's vision went white for a second from the hit. "_I made her scream, and I made… her cry, but she didn't matter… not really. I made the ugly little boy scream just… to make my Claire suffer, to break her spirit… but it all went wrong, everything blew up in… my face and…_

"Let go of him!" Natalia yelled, interrupting the monster's words by throwing a small rock at her. "Leave Barry alone!"

Picking up any small pieces of debris and tossing them at the mutated Alex with all her strength, the little girl's attacks didn't really do much to the figure, even though her aim with the little rocks wasn't that bad for a kid. One of them bounced off the monster's shoulder, another hit it in the back, but a lot missed completely as well, causing the mutated Alex to chuckle to herself, at least… until one of the rocks landed behind her with a sound that was totally different. It was louder and heavier, prompting both Barry and the figure to turn and look at the small metal canister just before it exploded.

_BOOM_! The big man's mind had just barely had time to register that the small object was a grenade before it erupted into a flash of noise and orange light, with the next thing he knew being that he was once again rolling across the floor. With ears ringing and some of his skin singed from the heat, Barry realized that if the mutated Alex hadn't been between him and the small bomb, it might have killed him at that range. Still, how the hell did Natalia manage to find a grenade of all things inside of this ruined tower base, let alone throw it that far, since they were a lot heavier than the rocks she had been using?

Oh shit, where was the kid? Even as far away as she had been, a blast like that was even more dangerous for a little girl, but as the ringing in his ears faded away, Barry was able to sigh with relief when he saw that, although she had apparently been knocked down by the concussive force, Natalia was getting up off the floor where she fell. Unfortunately, the little girl wasn't the only one who was recovering, and now the mutated Alex let out an angry growl before starting to cough and needing to lean heavily on one of the few still intact support beams.

From facing virus infected monsters of this caliber before, the big man knew that if the mutated Alex recovered, that he and Natalia would never be able to get away from her, nor did he have the firepower required to take her down by himself. Mentally kicking himself for not bringing any grenades of his own, Barry looked around in desperation for something that could help him out, but there were no more explosives randomly lying on the floor… but there _was_ something up above.

Only spotting it because of how the light of the rising sun was starting to come in through the holes in the top of the tower, the big man noticed that although the concrete ceiling high above was broken into large pieces, a lot of them were hanging on by a thread. So returning to his original plan of taking the rifle off his back and using it, Barry fired only a single shot at the monster, making it cry out when the bullet struck it in the mouth, and then he aimed the weapon upward.

_Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta_! Holding down the trigger and unleashing a hail of bullets at the damaged ceiling, one of the largest intact pieces was chipped away around where it was still holding onto the tower's skeleton, causing pebbles to rain down on the slowly recovering monster. Looking right at him with a scowl on its face, the mutated Alex was just about standing all the way up again, when the concrete slab above was released. _WHUMP_! One second the figure was standing there, and then it vanished underneath the giant concrete slab that came crashing down hard enough to shake the whole tower for a second, putting some small cracks in the floor as the dust was kicked up.

Coughing and temporarily blinded by the white cloud that was kicked up like a fog bank, Barry knew that they would have to move quickly if they were to get away, since it was never that easy to kill one of these things… especially after one being crushed with a car outside. So he moved in the general direction where he had seen Natalia, and if the dust hadn't already been settling they might have walked right past each other.

Underneath that slab, which had broken apart upon impact, the figure was already starting to move around; moaning pitifully as it tried to shift itself free of the rubble, but then Barry grabbed the little girl's hand to stop her from leaving when she started running for the door they had come in. No, if they went out into the city, the mutated Alex would easily be able to track them, so he needed a different plan, beginning with putting his finger to his lips as a signal for her to not make a sound.

With the monster's head still buried under the rubble and the front door of the tower still open, Barry hoped that the figure would assume they went back outside, when he was actually heading for another door. Now, the big man wasn't an expert on towers or the headquarters of evil psychopaths, but one thing he knew about construction was that every building inside of a modern city had to have sewer access. So leading Natalia by the hand, he started toward the other door, silently pushing it open while the monster just as slowly freed itself, and then telling the little girl to stay quiet again while they started down the stone staircase that was beyond.


	22. Chapter 22 A Father's Pain

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Two: A Father's Pain**

"Barry, wait." Natalia said with a strained voice. "Barry, wait… my foot."

After managing to sneak away from the base of the ruined tower undetected, the big man had kept the two of them moving at a fast pace in order to make sure that the mutated Alex didn't catch up if it figured out where they went. However, now the little girl was lagging behind, even with him holding her hand, so Barry was forced to eventually stop. They hadn't encountered any more monsters so far, but that didn't mean that these old sewers weren't dangerous, especially since none of the power was working.

Just like the prison complex had been, the only light to be found among these cold, algae covered pipes that ran along the concrete walls and ceiling, was the narrow beam that came from Barry's flashlight. Water was dripping randomly from some of the pipes, creating a soft echo all around that seemed almost calming after the chaos that the two of them had just been through, and since there didn't seem to be any immediate threats around, the big man stopped walking so that he could see what the little girl was talking about.

"I think I stepped on it wrong when we were running away." Natalia explained, hissing with pain when she sat down and tried to rotate her ankle. "It wasn't so bad back there, but now it's hurting more."

Nothing looked broken when Barry looked at her ankle, so nearest he could figure was that she had probably rolled it at some point when the figure attacked. What Natalia really needed was to rest it for a while, but with each second that they weren't moving, there was a greater chance that the mutated Alex would find them. Since the kid was so small, the obvious thing to do was carry her for a while, but since the big man needed his arms free if any more monsters showed up, he turned around and told her to climb up on his back.

"You good, kid?" He asked after standing up. "All right, now I'm gonna need you to watch out for anything bad up ahead with those special eyes of yours, okay?"

Natalia nodded, holding her arms around his neck as the walk down the tunnel resumed, and this actually made him remember back when he used to go for walks like that with Moira and Polly. Not with sewer tunnels or monsters or anything like that, just carefree father-daughter outings through Raccoon City Park or on the hiking trails near Tobias's cabin up in the Arklay Mountains. With everything that had been going on with the world over the past fourteen years, it was actually strange to think of a time when there were no zombies or weaponized viruses… back when the biggest challenge the RPD faced was a serial killer at the local college… wow… he might still be a cop in Raccoon City if not for the T-Virus outbreak.

"It sounds like your family was happy." Natalia said as they rounded another corner. "So why did Alex say that Moira didn't like you? Was she just lying?"

"We tried to be happy, with everything that was going on." Barry explained, shining his flashlight around. "Things were bad for a few years with Umbrella, and at times I forgot that my little girls were still kids… one day I forgot to lock up one of my guns, and, uh… there was an accident."

The big man remembered that awful event like it was yesterday; he had told Moira and Polly to never play with his guns, but his eldest daughter was always so damn independent and stubborn. Barry had just gotten home when Moira came running up to him with blood on her hands, yelling that Polly was hurt and that _the gun just went off_. Charging his way into the house, the first thing the big man saw was his youngest daughter lying on the living room floor with a bullet hole in her chest… and there was so much blood.

By the blessings of some higher power, Polly survived and made a full recovery after a long and frightening process… but the relationship between Barry and Moira had not. She was just a kid and it was his own fault for not locking up his guns, but in the heat of the moment he had lashed out at her. Most people would have probably understood that as a father he was a little out of his head, with one of his daughters nearly dying and all, but… he had taken it all out on Moira, and never gotten around to making amends between them… and now she wouldn't call home or even call him _Dad_ anymore.

"I'm never gonna get the chance to make things right now." Barry said, sniffling as a tear ran down his cheek. "But I'm gonna get you off this island, Natalia, I promise… and I'm gonna tear Alex Wesker's head off with my bare hands."

Breathing heavily now as an intense feeling of anger and hatred for the cloaked figure seemed to fill his entire body like boiling water, the big man gritted his teeth, swearing that he would destroy this entire island and every monster on it for what they did to his little girl. But first he needed to get Natalia out of the sewers and to someplace safe so that he could go and confront the hunchbacked bitch, and the water was still flowing, meaning that it had to be draining out somewhere.

"Hey Barry, what's that?" The little girl asked, pointing to something up ahead. "That part of the wall looked different; move the flashlight back."

Moving the beam back toward the right wall, he saw that it looked different because there was a door there. Small and made of cheap sheet metal like the entrance to a store room, the latch was locked, so the big man lifted his leg and vented a little bit of his anger by kicking it. Planting his foot right next to the handle, in the _sweet spot_ as it was referred to back at the police academy, causing the whole thing to split with a loud _crack_ as the door swung open. If nothing else, he was hoping that this place would serve as a place where he could set Natalia down for a while, but… wow, this place looked more like someone's home than a store room.

Sparsely decorated with a few pieces of wooden furniture that looked like they had been scavenged from the decaying buildings up in the city, it looked like no one had been using it for months, but then Barry discovered why that was. Over in the corner, past the writing desk and what looked like an old pig-iron cook stove, there was a small bed that was occupied by an old man. He was long dead, months at least based on the smell and how decayed his flesh was, but he wasn't mutated, nor was there a bracelet bolted to his arm. A survivor? At one time, anyway?

"Aw, the poor old guy." Natalia said sadly. "He died down here all alone."

God damn it, the big man thought as he remembered that everyone who had lived on this island was also a victim of Alex Wesker's experiments. This poor old bastard probably hid down there to escape from the monsters, and then just… died after no one came to help. People like the _Overseer_ really made his blood boil, just… just how they were willing to sacrifice the lives of countless innocent people, and for what? What did Umbrella gain from destroying Raccoon City? What did Albert Wesker actually gain from infecting a huge piece of Africa with that… that _weird shit_ that Chris stopped?

He just didn't understand why the mutated Alex had to take his little girl away in order to… to do what? To pull some _Wile E. Coyote_ half-baked nonsense that just blew up in her face anyway? To be fair, this kind of shit _always_ seemed to blow up in its creator's faces, and yet they never learned. Alex Wesker was gonna learn, though… the mutated freak was gonna learn the price for messing with the Burton family, just like Albert Wesker had learned at the Spencer Estate. The cloaked figure was gonna learn _long_, and she was gonna learn _hard_… but how was he going to take the monster down on his own?

Closing the door to the old man's _home_ so that he could rest in peace, and then continuing to follow the direction of the flowing water on the floor, the big man's mind was entertaining a thousand different scenarios in which he could make the mutated Alex suffer and die for what she did to Moira. Some of them were quick and easy, while others were slow and cruel, and still others were so ridiculous that they sounded like something out of a video game or a movie… no, he had to focus… he had to come up with something real that could not only destroy the hunchbacked bitch, but also be highly unlikely to fail.

Calling in an airstrike sounded like the most satisfying, but simply carpet-bombing an island that was the territory of a sovereign nation was probably not such a hot idea, so he continued to brainstorm while following the sewer tunnels… until an idea came to him just as some light became visible around the next corner. It was an _awful_ idea that went against everything he and the BSAA stood for, but if it worked then Alex Wesker would suffer more greatly than Barry could ever do on his own, but as he carried Natalia toward the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, the big man wasn't sure if he could really go through it.

At the end of the tunnel, the flowing water from the sewer simply drained outside into the edge of some kind of ravine, and once the big man's eyes adjusted to the light of the almost noon sun, he saw that this part of the island looked completely different. The terrain was rockier and even more mountainous than the forest by the prison, but there were no trees as if the whole place had been clear-cut for something. At least they were back on the surface, which meant that the radio was probably working again.

"Tobias, can you hear me, I need a favor… a _big_ one." Barry said into the radio, again hesitating to even suggest this. "If we needed to… just hypothetically now… how long would it take to get Gillette onto this island?"


	23. Chapter 23 Stalk Hunting

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Three: Stalk Hunting**

"_Barry, I think your signal must be bad_." Tobias's voice said once contact was reestablished. "_For a second there I thought you asked me about bringing my wife to the island, but that's crazy_."

"Damn it, Tobias, she killed my little girl." The big man replied, his voice starting to break. "Alex Wesker, the damn _Overseer _killed Moira, and then she… and then she _laughed_ about it. I've seen what Gillette can do to BOW's, and I want her to make that hunchbacked _freak_ dance like a little puppet until her fucking head explodes!"

Yes, he knew the dangers of intentionally deploying a C-Series Tyrant Class BOW into any environment with the plan to use her powers, but the whole island was already dead, so what did it matter? All they would have to do was drop Tobias's wife near the base of the tower, and Alex Wesker wouldn't know what hit her… nor would any of the other monsters that inhabited the island. Gillette would unleash her spores on them the same way she once did to the people onboard the Starlight, and then once it was all over she would be contained by geography until the detective could talk her down to behaving normally again.

"_Barry, you are scaring the kid_." Tobias's voice replied. "_Do you think that's what Moira would want; you basically nuking the island and dooming any survivors that might still be hiding? Because that's what my wife does… she starts infecting things with her spores, and she doesn't stop until everything is dead… even I can't resist her will at that point. Do you want a repeat of how I was on the Starlight_? _That's what would happen_."

No, the big man didn't want to deal with the detective while he was sort of… half-dominated by Gillette's spores, and when Barry looked back at Natalia, he saw that the little girl really was scared of what he was doing. Damn it, if there was the chance that even a handful of survivors were still hiding somewhere on the island, then deploying a weapon of such mass destruction was just not an option. Suddenly the big man was feeling ashamed of himself, and he realized that Moira's death was making him crazy… just like how the death of Tobias's son had made _him _crazy back in '98.

"You're right, I… I was stupid." Barry said after calming down with a few deep breaths. "God damn it, all right, let's forget all about Alex Wesker and just get off this island. You asked me what Moira would want? I think she would want me to keep Natalia safe, so I'm gonna get her off to safety, and uh… shit, which way do I go to get back to the boat?"

"_Yeah, about that_." The detective replied, sounding pretty unsure with his own tone. "_I lost your signal back at the tower, and I'm honestly not sure where you are right now, so this is gonna take a minute. What can you tell me about your surroundings? Terrain, structures, landmarks, things like that_."

This seemed like a strange request since Tobias was supposed to be able to see everything through the headset's camera… but maybe the signal was still too weak for a visual link, since even the audio was crackling. So he did as he was asked, setting down Natalia once she said that she could walk now, and then leaving the sewer drain pipe behind in order to take a look at his new surroundings. At first there wasn't much to describe beyond the rocky ground and steep hills, but then the ground seemed to open up into a wide chasm where there was a lot more to talk about.

It was a mine; the real old fashioned kind where the entrance to the quarry itself wasn't visible from there, but with plenty of wooden structures built around the area. There were conveyer belts and workshops and transporting and crushing the excavated ore, along with several shacks and larger buildings with two floors, most likely for storing tools and giving the workers a place to sleep respectively. Nothing was moving down inside the makeshift mining village, however, which was nice since it meant that there were no monsters.

Now that Barry thought about it, it was actually pretty strange how few monsters he had encountered since arriving on the island. Sure, there were big ones like the girl at the prison and that guy crying over the burned up helicopter, and of course Alex Wesker, but as far as the regular grunts that usually swarmed over an outbreak… there had only been a handful. Was it possible that the virus used in this place caused the infected to slowly rot away into nothing? That would explain why there were so many dead ones lying all over the streets back in the empty city.

"Basically, it's some kind of mine." The big man explained into the radio. "I don't know what they were digging for here, but it looked like it was a pretty extensive operation, and maybe you can see it with the BSAA satellite."

"_Sorry Barry, no way to get a satellite signal right now_." Tobias's voice replied. "_Don't worry, we'll find you eventually, but for now I got a couple of ideas for you to find your way back_."

The detective's advice was actually pretty simple. Instead of focusing on the mine itself, Tobias wanted him to look for old tire tracks or drag marks, anything that could be followed to where the partially processed ore was taken from that point on. Odds were that it was taken to a factory or a smelting plant or something, and from there the two of them could probably at least find a proper map of the island, if nothing else. With all that, it should be easy for him to find his way back to the boat, so Barry told his former friend to _stand by_ while he looked around.

Checking his immediate surroundings first, the big man sighed heavily when there were no clues to be found, and then taking Natalia's hand so that the two of them could start walking toward the old mining village. She was still limping a little bit, but it was getting better, meaning that the best thing for the little girl was to walk it off until there was no more soreness in her ankle. And it was a good thing that Natalia was doing better, because in order to get to the mining village there was a slope they needed to walk down.

"All right, just hold onto my hand." The big man said, going down first. "One step at a time."

It wasn't steep or anything, but rocky ground like this could easily be slippery in places, so it took a while for the two of them to get down into the chasm, which actually wasn't as deep as it looked before. Like with the empty city, the first thing Barry saw when approaching the mining village was that all of the machinery and equipment was just lying around as if it all had to be abandoned in a hurry. No dead monsters on the ground though… come to think of it, there weren't any living ones either. This place was completely empty, but behind one of the larger trucks that was still loaded with building supplies… there were deep tire tracks that would surely lead…

"_Natalia_!" The deep, raspy voice of Alex Wesker called from behind. "_There's nowhere to run, you little… bitch_!"

Except for the fact that it was coming from behind, Barry couldn't tell where the cloaked figure was since every sound bounced off everything down in the chasm even worse than down in the sewer tunnels. But just because he didn't know where the monster was, that didn't mean that he and the kid had to just sit there waiting for the bitch to strike. So the big man crouched down, quickly leading the little girl around the heavy truck, and then trying to stay out of sight while following the tire tracks.

One good thing about there being so much stuff down in the chasm was that there were plenty of things to hide behind, and good thing too, because Barry had just gotten them around the other side of another truck when the hunchbacked monster revealed itself. Coughing and breathing heavily as it stomped its way through the mining village, somehow the mutated Alex was even more frightening in broad daylight, looking like a hunchbacked murderer from a really old movie as it swung its whole head back and forth to look around for its victims with that bulging red eye.

Watching it walk past from behind the truck, the big man wondered if destroying its big red eye would have the same effect on the mutated Alex as it did on the monster near the helicopter. Taking a shot like that from this distance would be easy enough, but if he was wrong about it being this monster's weak point, then all it would accomplish was revealing their location. So Barry picked the safer option, moving behind supports and ducking through old wooden shacks, going slowly from cover to cover until the other side of the mining village was in sight.

"_You think this is a game_?!" The monster rasped while walking off in the wrong direction. "_I know you're here, Natalia, now come… out, or it's gonna be even worse for you! I swear I'll make you watch… while I rip your friend's arms and… legs off!_"

Even without following the tire tracks, it would have been easy to leave the village, but without knowing which direction led back toward some kind of larger settlement, the big man could easily have gone the wrong way and ended up even more lost. But now that Barry had reached the end of the mining village, there was no more cover until the forest started up again at the top of the chasm, so he waited until the monster wandered off again before making his move.

"Careful now, one step at a time." The big man whispered, helping Natalia up the steep slope. "God, it would be nice to have a truck right now."

Each step that he and the little girl took to climb up brought new fear that the hunchbacked monster would spot them and come running, but it didn't happen. It seemed that luck was finally on their side as he reached the top and then turned back around to help the little girl make it the last bit of the way… but then Natalia screamed, causing Barry to turn around just in time to get struck across the head by one of the cloaked figure's large arms. Flung off his feet, the big man slammed into the ground a short distance away, but then started rolling down another, smaller slope that sent him sliding far away from the little girl while Alex Wesker closed in.


	24. Chapter 24 Lansdale's Legacy

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Four: Lansdale's Legacy**

After a quick search of the immediate area, which was becoming more difficult now that it was night time, neither Claire nor Moira had managed to find any trace of the little girl. Hoping at first that Natalia had just gotten scared and taken cover while Gabe's helicopter was crashing, the more the two women looked around the areas surrounding the base of the tower, it was becoming obvious that the little girl had just vanished off the face of the earth. The only place left for them to search was inside of the tower itself, so after taking a deep breath, Claire slowly pushed the double doors open.

Unlike the city's power system that was malfunctioning at best, all of the lights were on in this place, with big floodlights way up high on the really tall ceiling showing the two of them every last feature of the room. Not that there was a lot to speak of, just a concrete floor and a bunch of support pillars… a few catwalks up on the higher levels, and what looked like a large cargo elevator that was… hey, the car was moving. It was headed upward to the tower's higher levels, and oh shit there was someone standing there.

"All right, the vessel's on its way up." A familiar voice said, heavily distorted by all the echoing. "I'm gonna head back before I'm missed."

"_Good work, you've really come through for me_." The unmistakable voice of the Overseer replied. "_To show my gratitude, I've left you a little something over there by the left pillar… I hope it was all worth it for you_."

Because of the intensity of the floodlights, as well as the echoing and the noise from the elevator, it was impossible to tell who that person was who was now walking away from the elevator… but if they were working for the Overseer, then they couldn't let him get away. Motioning for Moira to go around the other way while she snuck up from behind, Claire put her pistol away before creeping around the pillars behind him. The man was searching for something around the pillar where the unseen woman had left something for him, so Claire grabbed him from behind, putting the man into a full-nelson hold while Moira came around the front.

"Don't move, asshole!" The young woman ordered, holding her crowbar threateningly. "I swear to God, I'll knock your fucking… Neil?!"

Gasping with shock at hearing that name, the woman released her prisoner from the hold, and sure enough it was the founder of TerraSave that turned around to look at her. No, but that was impossible, why would their boss be doing _anything_ for the Overseer, let alone receiving some kind of reward for it? For what felt like the longest time, the three of them just stood there looking like they were all about to start talking, but being unable to find the words, at least until Claire managed to ask him what he was doing there.

"I'm actually glad you showed up when you did, Redfield." The man explained. "I got turned around after we split up back there, and I couldn't get back to you guys, but listen… you were right. I'm pretty sure this is the Overseer's base of operations, but I can't know for sure until the elevator comes back down."

"But _you're_ the one who sent it up just now, I _saw_ you." Claire replied, putting her hands on her hips. "And then she said _thank you_ for whatever it was, so what's going on here, Neil? You need to come clean right now."

"_Yes Neil, come clean_." The Overseer's voice interrupted through the bracelets. "_Tell the pretty girl exactly what you've been doing this whole time, and then watch her delicate little heart break into pieces. Or do you want me to just tell her_?"

Immediately the man started to deny knowing what the unseen woman was talking about, but then the Overseer completely threw him under the bus by informing the two women that he was the one who arranged for all the little TerraSave people to be kidnapped from that party. It had been Neil's own personal soldiers who ambushed the party and brought the prisoners to the island; all of them remnants of the old FBC, and all loyal followers of Morgan Lansdale's way of doing things.

"Lansdale?" Moira asked, trying to remember where she heard that before. "Wasn't that the guy who helped a terrorist group destroy Terragrigia?"

"_Very good, Moira_." The Overseer replied. "_Ugly people 'should' be smart… anyway, when Lansdale got busted, he charged Neil here with keeping his dream of a better world alive, so naturally he followed his predecessor's playbook step by step. He built an organization with worldwide access, made a lot of connections, and then completely dicked his own people over just to win my favor. Don't be sad, Claire, he was no good for you from the start_."

"No, it's not like that at all!" Neil yelled, putting his hands on Claire's shoulders. "Everything I do is for the good of the world, and you have to believe me that no matter what happens, TerraSave will be there to make _everyone_ safe!"

Gasping and stepping away when the man said this, the woman felt a sharp pain surge through her mind when she realized that the Overseer was telling the truth. Lansdale and created the FBC and conspired with that group Veltro to infect Terragrigia with a virus, and then he screwed them over to show that his organization was the one to bet on. The result was an expanded and overfunded FBC that could do what it wanted until the truth was discovered by her brother… and now Neil was doing the same thing.

"Damn it Claire, I'm not some third-world bioterrorist, all right?" The man exclaimed, backing away from them and over to the pillar where a small box was on the floor. "This isn't some untested throwback from the T-Virus, damn it, it's the real… _ugh_!"

Picking up the box while talking, and holding it out to show them, Neil suddenly cried out in surprise and pain when something shot out of the box, stabbing deep into his palm. The rest of the box fell apart, revealing that it housed a syringe full of a strange black substance that was now being emptied into his hand. The man tried to remove the needle, but instead screamed as he fell to his knees, and now it looked like some kind of large snakes were starting to move around underneath his skin.

"_Aw what's wrong, my little lapdog_?" The Overseer taunted as he coughed and spit out blood. "_You said you wanted a sample of Uroboros, didn't you? Well, now you've got it… all the Uroboros you'll ever need_."

Trying to speak, but no longer able to form words, Neil's body slowly began mutating, not like Pedro's had done, but becoming infested with long black snakes that began to swarm all over his body once they broke out through his skin. He was getting bigger, his still visible limbs and torso stretching and swelling to accommodate the snakes that were growing more numerous to the point of coming out his mouth, too. Moira was visibly frightened, backing away as the mutation continued, but Claire had seen it before.

Just a couple years ago this same thing had been unleashed across part of Africa, and after the whole thing had been sorted out by her brother, Claire was with the team who had gone in to the area to provide humanitarian aid to the survivors and victims' families. After all that work, the Uroboros virus was supposed to be wiped out, not being purchased by the leader of an organization that was supposed to save people… hell, saving people was in the damn name, why would he do a thing like this.

"_Oh, what a shame_." The unseen woman's voice continued as the rest of Neil was consumed. "_Looks like after all that talk of building a better world, our poor friend, Neil, wasn't worthy after all. But don't worry, my sweet little Claire, I've left you a little something, too; just stay alive long enough for the elevator to come back down, and you'll find a token of my affection_."

"Uh… Claire?" Moira asked, pointing toward the monster. "Claire!"

Neil was gone now, replaced by a twisting and squirming pile of what looked like long black snakes, with the whole thing seeming to get a little bigger as it swung its body into one of the support pillars, causing everything to shake. Looking up as the lights swung and dust fell from the distant ceiling, the woman was putting her hands over her head to protect herself, when she noticed something else. The elevator was coming back down, but… what was the Overseer sending back with it?

_Bang! Bang! Bang! _Without any time for standing around waiting, Claire fired several shots at the twisting mass with her pistol, hoping to at least slow it down by aiming for places that looked like structural weaknesses. Several of the black tendrils broke away from the main body with each hit, falling to the floor and writhing for a few seconds as they disintegrated, but more were replacing them at an almost unbelievable rate. As if sensing a threat, the monster swung its body at the woman, forcing her to dive for cover as it struck the tower's wall instead, putting several small cracks in the concrete, but not appearing to injure itself in any way.

"Moira, keep back!" She yelled, waving with her arm while backing away from the twisting creature. "Just… just stay on the opposite side of the room from it, and if you get the chance get out of here!"

"I can't just leave you here, Claire!" The young woman called back, staying well back from the monster. "Here, I'll get it to back off you for a second!"

Picking up a piece of the rubble knocked down from the wall, the young woman tossed it as hard as she could at the monster's, uh… back? Claire tried to warn her not to do it, and the good news was that Moira succeeded in getting the monster's attention… oh shit, now she had the monster's attention. _Bang_! There weren't many bullets left in the woman's pistol, so hopefully one shot was enough to get its attention back on her… yeah, and it was. Great, so they could take turns getting the twisting creature to chase them, but it was only a matter of time before Claire's bullets ran out, or they got tired.

What were they going to do?


	25. Chapter 25 Fear is Overcome

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Five: Fear is Overcome**

Maybe if she were still nineteen and hadn't been going through a stressful situation with no sleep for more than twenty four hours, Claire could have handled this fight against the mutated Neil better… however, she had none of these things going for her. So instead of being able to fight and win, the woman needed all of her remaining strength just to stay alive. The first thing she had thought of was running away, but as if the twisting monster had sensed her plan somehow, one of the first things it did was launch some of its black snake-like tendrils across the room, where they sealed the tower's exit.

Even though it probably only took a minute or so for the elevator to come back down, she felt like it had taken an hour, but the only problem was that when the car's door slid open, Claire was on the wrong side of the room with the monster in the way. So she ducked and ran around the support pillars to try and get past it, but it was like the twisting monster was starting to anticipate her movements, leaving the woman to slowly be cornered.

"Moira, get to the elevator!" She yelled, running around another pillar as the monster followed her. "Grab whatever's in there, I don't care what it is, just get it!"

_Wham_! Another hit from the monster's body to the wall caused one of the ceiling's floodlights to spark for a second before going out. There were still plenty more of them up there, but the thought of one falling down at her was… was exactly what she needed. The lights might have been high up, but the levers to release them for bulb changing and whatnot were on one of the other walls, so as soon as she had the chance, the woman aimed at those controls and fired. There was no chance of her hitting the wires themselves, that was just silly, but the control board was a lot bigger.

_Bang! Thwack!_ Even with as tired as she was, Claire was still able to hit the control board with her shot, and it was enough to release one of the floodlights. Watching the giant fixture fall down toward the monster, the woman was relieved that her plan was going to work… until she realized that _two more_ of the lights had been released as well. The first one landed right on top of the twisting creature, making it roar and stumble while the electrical current surged through its whole body for a second, but Claire suddenly found herself having to jump out of the way to avoid getting crushed by one of the others.

Now there were only two floodlights working at the ceiling, making the chamber significantly darker, but also allowing the woman to run over to the elevator once she scrambled to her feet. Moira was kneeling in the doorway, trying to figure out whatever it was that was in her hands, but the electrical current from the light had stopped by the time Claire got there, leaving no time for mystery solving.

"It's just a box!" The young woman frantically yelled, showing it to her. "It doesn't do anything!"

"No time, get inside!" Claire yelled, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her into the car. "Come on, quick!"

Falling on her face as soon as they were both inside, the woman used her foot to kick the button that closed the doors, and hopefully this would give them the time needed to figure out what… _CRASH_! Before Claire could even examine the box on her own, the elevator door was ripped off like it was made of tin foil, while at the same time one of the twisting monster's tendrils snatched the box from Moira's hands. The gift vanished into the twitching mass that was its body, and then the woman screamed as it grabbed onto her legs as well.

Frantically reaching out for something to keep herself from getting consumed, the only thing that Claire's hands found was Moira, causing the young woman to scream as well as they were both yanked out of the elevator with such force that they flew a short distance. The wind was knocked out of Claire when she hit the ground, and Moira yelped as if she had gotten hurt, but there was no time to rest… any second now the creature… what the hell was the creature doing?

Instead of attacking again, the twisting monster was flopping around, slamming its body into the wall and pillars as… as the black snakes making up its body began to disintegrate before they even fell off. The monster growled and roared, losing more and more of its mass as it struggled, and as more and more of the tendrils fell off, the remains of a human body within could be seen. It didn't look anything like Neil anymore, but at least thanks to whatever was in that box the thing was dying… and then all that was left was the sort of human carcass when it finally collapsed to the ground.

Both women had been just starting to get up when the thing collapsed, so they followed suit, collapsing to the floor just as quickly and trying to catch their breath while asking each other if they were all right. Luckily, both of them seemed to be fine, although a look in the mirror would have suggested otherwise, so the woman relaxed on her knees, taking a deep breath and starting to let out a sigh of relief just before Moira screamed some kind of warning to her.

Looking back in the direction she was pointing, Claire saw that even though almost all of the monster's tendrils had evaporated, its human carcass was still moving. So she started to aim her pistol at the same time that it leaped at her, but was not fast enough to get off a shot before the thing tackled her to the floor. Its snarling body was still slowly rotting away, but the monster was still strong enough to overpower an exhausted woman, so the next thing Claire knew she was on her back… while her pistol slid across the floor toward Moira.

"Moira, help!" The woman screamed, using both arms to keep the things head from biting her. "Moira!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the young woman crawling toward the fallen pistol, but with the rate that Claire and the melting monster were both losing strength, it was anyone's guess which one would win if Moira didn't get there in time. Again calling out for the young woman to help, the monster's jaws were getting closer to Claire's body, and while Moira had reached the weapon, the act of even picking it up was causing her hands to shake while tears ran down her face. The young woman was trying to aim, she really was, but her hands were shaking so badly and her eyes were so wet that Claire didn't know if she was going to hit her or the monster… if she even…

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Shutting her eyes and letting out a scream that almost drowned out the gunshots that followed, Moira began pulling the trigger, and even though there were only three left in the weapon's clip, it was enough. Each bullet slammed right into the monster's rotting head, putting it off balance enough for Claire to free herself by pushing it over sideways, where it continued to writhe and melt away for several seconds until there was nothing left. Moira was still kneeling there, holding the pistol like she was still aiming at the creature and just staring off into space.

"Moira?" Claire asked, slowly taking the pistol from her once she scooted over to her. "Moira… it's over… you did it."

It wasn't until she snapped her fingers in front of Moira's face that the young woman was jolted back into reality, and then Claire hissed in pain when Moira threw her arms around her. Squeezing so tightly that the woman's already sore back hurt even more, thankfully the hug didn't last too much longer. Gasping for breath as soon as she was released, the woman put her last clip into the pistol… right before both women looked back at the elevator.

"Are we… are we really gonna do this?" The young woman asked, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Can't we take a… take a five year break or something?"

"I know it sucks, but we have… to stop her." Claire replied between breaths, looking up at the ceiling. "If we don't stop the Overseer here and… now, she's just gonna keep going, and… Gabe, Pedro, Gina… even Neil would all be for… nothing. Come on."

They had to help each other get to their feet, and Moira limped a little as they walked back over to the elevator. Hopefully once the unseen woman had been dealt with, the tower would have a way for them to call for help, and then Claire could take a _really_ long vacation. Hell, was there even going to _be_ a TerraSave anymore now that Neil was dead and most of the founding members were, well… they were dead, too. God, how was it even possible for a single person to cause this much damage?

She already knew that it was pretty easy, given that William Birkin had caused the Raccoon City outbreak, and Osmund Saddler had caused that whole incident in Spain a few years ago, so… even with everything ruined, the unseen woman was still a danger. Pushing the button and then leaning against the wall, it was odd to see an elevator moving without a door, but at least now there was nothing left between them and the Overseer. For a second Claire hoped that they would be able to surprise their enemy, but then again the unseen woman did give them that box, and was probably still listening to their every word.

"_Ah, so Neil is dead, and Lansdale's dream is crushed_." The unseen woman's voice said, startling them both. "I know you're sad now, Claire, since you had to kill your little boyfriend, but I'm here for you… so come on up, and let's get this over with… I can't wait to see you."


	26. Chapter 26 The Overseer

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Six: The Overseer**

Claire wasn't sure what she was expecting to find at the top of the elevator shaft once the car stopped, but it wasn't a completely modern scientific facility. Clean and sterile like the research wing of a big hospital, the walls, floor, and ceiling were white, and while half of this place looked like a laboratory that was decades ahead of anything else on the island, the rest of it looked like a fancy studio apartment.

Across from the test tubes and monitoring equipment that was displaying complicated scientific data across several screens, there was a king size bed, a bathroom that had a jacuzzi tub, and even a full size kitchen. Each area of the living quarters was sectioned off with three walls but no door or front section, making it technically still a studio, and the whole place was _massive_. There was even one of the sections dedicated to a single large control panel, with dozens upon dozens of small television monitors that were displaying a lot of familiar places around the island.

"So, she really _was_ watching us the whole time?" Claire asked, pointing to a monitor. "That's where Gabe found the helicopter, he… oh God, he thought we were being sneaky, but she saw it all, right from the beginning."

_Tink-tink_, the sound of something softly hitting the floor at their feet caused the woman to look down out of reflex, only to scream when a flash of light and heat burned her eyes. Even with the disorientation, blindness, and ringing in her ears, Claire knew that she had been hit by a flashbang grenade for the second time since arriving on the island… and that explained where Neil had gotten the one he used to save her from the mutated Pedro. Suddenly aware of being touched, someone had grabbed the woman's wrists and was pulling her backwards while forcing them behind her back.

Claire kicked and struggled, but could not prevent herself from… being handcuffed? Yes, there as that familiar feeling of having handcuffs slapped on her wrists, but now she was attached to something. It was so hard to tell through the disorientation, but it felt like she had been handcuffed to a pole… the woman was still on her feet, but was unable to use her arms or step away from whatever anchor was behind her. She didn't know how long she was there for, but eventually the ringing in her ears faded away, and Claire was able to open her eyes to see a blurry face right in front of her.

As her vision cleared, the image of a stern looking woman with long blonde hair and bright red lipstick came into focus, making Claire hiss in pain when she shined a small flashlight into them. She tried to close her eyes again, but the blonde woman pulled them open to shine the light in again, telling her to _not be so dramatic_, and then… giving her a kiss on the forehead? Claire's ears were still ringing a little, but it was all clearing up, allowing her to see that this woman looked like a _James Bond_ villain with her completely white pants-suit, and… and a heavily disoriented Moira was lying face down on the floor behind her.

"Moira." Claire called weakly, pulling against the pole behind her as she realized who this woman was. "Moira, get up… you gotta get up."

"I thought I told you to stop being so dramatic, Claire." The Overseer said, gently caressing her face. "Oh, I know that you're a little scared right now, but what did you think was gonna happen? That I was just gonna let you walk in here and shoot me? I've been wanting to spend some time with you for a while now, but… well, I guess you should know that my experiment is over, so your friend here is about to have a bad day."

Without turning around, the blonde woman kicked her leg back, knocking the crowbar that Moira was using to help her get up, out from under her so that the young woman fell on her face. The Overseer then told Claire that she would be right back, before picking up the weapon and setting it down on the shelf next to her… and then grabbing Moira by the hair and forcing her to her feet. The young woman was so disoriented that she had trouble standing, but the Overseer solved that problem by shoving her up against the wall and jamming her elbow into Moira's throat.

"And what have we here?" The blonde woman asked. "I'd say it was a chicken, but it has no breasts… what's wrong, smartass, nothing witty to say this time?"

Suddenly letting the young woman go, the Overseer backed up just enough to be able to pull back and slug Moira in the stomach, making the young woman cough hoarsely as she bent forward. She tried to fight back or maybe just push the blonde woman away, but Moira was so out of it from the flashbang explosion that she was unable to do anything to stop the Overseer from punching her in the side of the head just as she was starting to get up. Next kicking her legs out from under her so that the young woman fell on her face, she was about to stomp on her head…

"Stop it!" Claire yelled, pulling on the handcuffs with all her strength. "Leave her alone, she's just a kid!"

"Oh, just a kid." The blonde woman mocked, walking back over to Claire and grabbing her by the hair. "The only reason that _kid_ has lived this long was because I thought I needed her. It was supposed to be _you_, my darling, but then I found out that you've had the Daylight vaccine."

Claire didn't know what she was talking about as the rant continued to where the Overseer had been forced to use Moira by default, and how maybe she could make that work by growing her hair out, using a _ton_ of makeup… and maybe some breast implants. But thankfully Neil had been good enough to bring her a better _vessel_, whatever that meant, and now that this vessel was going to be locked away for six months, the blonde woman was free to do as she pleased until it was ready and could be verified.

"Leave… Moira… alone." Claire growled, trying not to cry out as the blonde woman kept pulling her hair to tilt her head. "I swear, I'll… kill you if you touch her again."

"Is that so?" The Overseer asked, letting go of her. "Hold that thought, my darling."

Walking back over to where Moira was struggling to get up, the blonde woman kicked her in the stomach, making the young woman cough as she collapsed back down… and then the Overseer took a small key out of her pocket. Without a word she came back over to Claire and unlocked the handcuffs, before stepping back a little and then motioning for her to come forward like… like she actually wanted to fight.

So the woman came forward with a wild swing that was supposed to catch her off guard, but the Overseer simply turned her body to avoid it, and then came back with a straight punch that caught Claire in the mouth. Chuckling a bit when Claire was staggered by this, the blonde woman asked if she wanted her to _kiss it and make it better_, before attacking again. Maybe it was because she was already so fatigued, or maybe she was still out of it from the flashbang, but today the Overseer was a much better fighter than Claire was.

For a little while the woman was able to hold her own, trying to twist the blonde woman's arms into a submission hold, and actually managed to hit her a couple times, but the Overseer just kept coming. With her fists up like a boxer, the blonde women struck her again and again, hitting Claire in the stomach and the face, everywhere that she left unguarded for even an instant, driving her back until she was against another table. Now really off balance, the woman fell back onto the table after taking another hit to the cheek, and then the blonde woman pinned her down.

"What's the matter, Claire, I thought you were a tough girl." The Overseer taunted, grabbing her by the jaw and then punching her in the side of the head. "Well you're not, you little brat; I've got six months to kill, and from now on you're gonna be my _pet_, aren't you? _Aren't you_, Claire? But first, I'm gonna handcuff you again, and I'm gonna make you watch while I skin Moira alive with a God damn _potato peeler_, and…

_Whack_! Suddenly the blonde woman stopped talking as her whole body shook, and then some blood started to drip through her long hair as she stumbled sideways… revealing that Moira was standing behind her with a bloodied crowbar in her hands. _Whack! Whack!_ The young woman struck the Overseer every time she stopped moving, leaving her completely dazed with eyes rolling around her head as she fell to her knees. The blonde woman tried to say something, but all that came out was some incoherent slurred stuff, which didn't matter much as Claire pulled the pistol out of the blonde woman's shoulder holster.

"Six months?" Claire asked, almost falling over while trying to aim the pistol. "More like… six _seconds_."

_Bang_! The blonde woman looked up at her, and then it was all over. Claire didn't want to kill anyone, ever, but the Overseer had tortured and killed so many people, and she knew that the blonde woman would never stop on her own. So that was what the whole mysterious experiment added up to… a whole lot of nothing, with the one responsible lying dead on the floor of her own tower. The woman had given her enemy every opportunity to stop, she knew that, but Claire still felt bad for what had to be done, but… there was just no other…

Suddenly a high-pitch alarm started to go off, resounding through the whole apartment/laboratory while a bunch of spinning yellow lights mounted on the upper walls activated. For a few seconds Claire didn't understand what was happening, but then she saw that all of the monitors were showing what looked like a heartbeat… one that had flat lined, and that was when she realized that killing the blonde woman had somehow triggered a failsafe system… oh crap, it was a _self destruct_!

"Back to the elevator!" Claire exclaimed, both of them needing to help each other walk now. "Hurry, we gotta get out before it blows!"

"_Blows_!?" The young woman exclaimed as they started moving. "This place is gonna blow up?!"

Yeah, they usually did, the woman thought as they got back into the elevator. But at least this time all they had to do was go down one elevator shaft and run out the front door. So she pushed the button and then leaned on the wall to catch her breath, with several seconds passing before she noticed that they were still in the apartment/laboratory. Pushing the button again, and then again, the car refused to start moving… meaning that they were trapped up there, without even knowing how long was left until the explosion.


	27. Chapter 27 Castaway

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Seven: Castaway**

With alarms blaring, and the whole tower starting to rumble as the facility's unseen power source prepared to explode, Claire and Moira had no choice but to look for the stairs since the elevator wasn't working. Helping each other to walk after all the injuries they had sustained both from the island and their confrontation with the Overseer, there was another door that was spotted quickly, but it was on the other side of the apartment. So they moved as quickly as possible, dropping their weapons on the floor so that both hands would be free to lean on things and hold each other up until they reached the door.

"Holy shit!" Moira exclaimed when a rush of wind hit them after opening the door. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

But the tower wasn't kidding; the door labeled STAIRS leading to the outside of the tower, where a small grated steel catwalk appeared to go around the perimeter. A few sections of concrete stairs were visible right below as if this area had still been under construction when the Overseer had decided to kill all of the workers with the virus, leaving Claire to wonder what the blonde woman would have done if the elevator ever stopped working while she was up there.

"Come on, Moira." The woman groaned as they stepped onto the grated metal. "We can make it."

Shaking back and forth as soon as the two women put their weight on it, the walkway felt like it was going to collapse at any moment, with the slowly intensifying rumble of the tower not helping the situation. At first it was easy enough to navigate, since the walkway was wide enough to accommodate two slender built women walking next to each other, but then things got a bit more difficult after that first turn around the tower. First the walkway became too narrow for them to help each other anymore, and then there was a part where the walkway itself must have broken off or something, because it was now just a narrow wooden plank that skirted around a section of wall that jutted out.

Gasping and closing her eyes tightly after the wind almost caused her to fall, Claire gripped the wall tightly as she side-stepped around the wide section of the wall, only to scream and grab onto the guardrail when there was suddenly nothing under her foot. No, wait a second… guardrail? The walkway hadn't vanished, it had simply become a downward slope that was once again wide enough for the two of them to help each other along once the young woman caught up to her. Even better news, the downward slope led to a door that went into a slightly lower section of the tower.

This must have been the top of the building's original stairwell before the Overseer's hideout was built, because once the two of them were inside, all that lie ahead was a downward spiral. It was still painful for Claire to go down the stairs, but at least there was a railing, and no wind to… _crack, screech, crack_… the woman's thoughts were stopped when some concrete dust began to rain down on their heads. Looking up at the ceiling, she gasped when she saw that it was cracking apart from the powerful shaking of the tower's power source, with tiny pieces already starting to fall.

"Faster." Moira groaned, pulling her around the corner to the next section. "Claire, we gotta go faster before…

_Crack, screech, THUD_! Above them the tower was shaking so violently now that the whole ceiling was breaking up, with a huge piece of concrete falling onto the section of stairs above them, destroying it completely, and throwing Claire forward just as it landed on their section as well. Wait a second, the falling debris didn't throw her… she was pushed… had Moira pushed her forward? Catching herself on the guardrail again to keep from falling on her face, the woman turned around to discover why the young woman had pushed her.

"Moira!" She called, trying to get back to her. "Moira, are you all right?!"

The young woman had shoved Claire out of the way as the concrete ceiling broke through the section above theirs, but unfortunately she hadn't been able to do the same for herself. She hadn't been crushed by the concrete pieces, but most of her body was trapped underneath them, leaving only one arm free, not that it was doing much good. The whole tower was coming apart now, with pieces breaking off from the walls themselves, letting the wind rush inside, meaning that there wasn't much time before everything exploded.

"Claire, get out of here!" The young woman yelled, barely heard over the noise of the collapsing tower. "There's no time, you gotta go!"

The woman tried to shift the pieces of debris to free her, but Claire just wasn't strong enough, and now Moira was pushing her away with her one usable arm. As horrible as it felt to just leave her there, concrete and steel pieces were raining down all around them, so the woman took off, moving as quickly as she could down to the next section, but then nearly falling out when the section of wall she was leaning on collapsed, allowing her to see just how high up from the ground she still was.

Set right on the coast of the island, all Claire could see way down below was the ocean stretching out across the horizon, but she had to keep going before… _BOOM_! She had just been turning around to keep going down the stairs, when the self destruct sequence was completed, and the tower's power source exploded in a brilliant flash that flung the woman through the wall's opening like she was a paper doll. Now Claire was falling… only able to hear the wind while the world spun around her several times until every part of her body felt like it was on fire when she finally hit the water with a muffled _splash_!

She wasn't sure how, but Claire's body was still able to move as she sunk down into the ocean… or maybe it was the piece of wooden debris that she had landed on that was bringing her back up to the surface. Coughing and gagging once on the surface, the woman gasped for breath while turning her head back toward the island, where the tower was in flames. All around her there were large pieces of wood, metal, and concrete falling down into the water, and the woman was trying to sit up in order to look for signs of Moira, when a small piece of debris struck her in the side of the head that she blacked out.

The next time her eyes opened, the island was gone, and Claire was drifting aimlessly on that piece of wood in the middle of the ocean. The sun had gone down, and she couldn't move from the fatigue throughout her entire body, so the woman passed out again, with her just barely being able to open her eyes next time… and dimly aware of being lifted out of the water by someone. Voices were heard around her, and there was orange light from maybe a lantern… the voices were speaking a language she didn't understand… maybe Russian?

Someone tried to give her some water, but the woman coughed up most of it, and then one of the voices sounded like it was speaking into the radio, maybe telling about her? Was she on a boat? Turning her head to the side and then passing out again, the next time Claire woke up she was somewhere else entirely; the air was colder and the wind was blowing… no, wait, the wind wasn't blowing, she was being moved on a cart or something. People were around the cart too, speaking English now, and talking about what treatment she needed… a hospital?

"Claire!" A deep familiar voice called, pushing one of the people aside. "Get out of the way, you fuck! Claire, what happened to Moira? Was my daughter with you?"

"Barry?" The woman whispered weakly. "Barry… Moira… she's… she's…

"I'm sorry, Director, but you can't come into the ICU." One of the people around interrupted, blocking his path as Claire was rolled away. "Get her prepped for surgery, _stat_."

Claire must've been sedated for surgery, because the next time she woke up she was lying in a hospital bed, with much of her body in a cast, and hooked up to several IV's that were slowly pumping medicine into her blood. Her head still hurt, and the slightest movement caused great pain, but the woman was alive, and as expected it wasn't long until Barry Burton came to visit her. The big man was glad that she was going to be all right, even with the several months of recovery ahead of her, but of course he wanted to know what happened to Moira.

"We were on an island." She said, struggling to remember much of anything with how badly she was hurting. "The Overseer took us there as… subjects, I… I don't know where we were… there was a city, and… the people… those poor people."

"It's okay, Claire, take your time." Barry said, putting his hand on hers. "Is there anything you can remember? The name of the island, or the name of the city?"

No, there wasn't… she had never learned the names of the fishing village or anything like that, and the Overseer was definitely not a native… not that Claire even knew the blonde woman's name. There was nothing useful about the place that she could remember, and trying to recall little details was really hurting her head, so the big man told her to just get some rest for now, before he got up and walked out into the hallway to speak with someone that she assumed was another BSAA agent.

"I want twenty four hour security on this girl." Barry instructed the other man. "And I want a full Level 4 biohazard containment team on standby inside this building… I have to go make a call now, and I need everyone prepared for a hostile visitor."

With that, the big man walked away from the room, leaving Claire to rest while the armed men standing at her door divided the time into shifts. Still trying to remember anything useful about the island, but unable to do so, the woman closed her eyes to try and get some sleep, all the while hoping and praying that somehow Moira had survived… even though it wasn't very likely.


	28. Chapter 28 True or False

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Eight: True or False**

Groaning as he rolled over onto his side, Barry felt like he had been hit by a truck as he tried to sit up. The sun was a little higher now, maybe shortly after noon, and… God the mutated Alex could hit hard. Struggling to get to his feet, and then even more so to get back up the rocky slope he had been knocked down, the big man expected to have to start shooting as soon as he reached the top… but the hunchbacked figure wasn't there. It was just Natalia, and she was just standing there with a strangely blank look on her face.

"Natalia?" He asked, kneeling down with her. "Hey kid, you okay?"

At first there was no response, with the little girl just standing there and staring off into space, but then he shook her a little and Natalia blinked, suddenly gasping and looking around all wide-eyed like she was scared of something. The mutated Alex was gone, though, with no sign of the monster except for one of her large footprints that was going in the opposite direction… but if she had it in for the little girl, then why just take off like that?

"What happened, kid?" Barry asked when she suddenly hugged him. "Where did Wesker go?"

"I don't know, she was right here." Natalia explained, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. "But then I think I fainted, because I had that dream again, and then you were here when I woke up."

When the big man asked what dream she was talking about, the little girl explained that the first time it happened was when she got all sleepy after talking to Alex before she was a monster. It was kind of hard to remember, but in the dream she was searching for Lottie, her missing teddy bear that she hadn't seen in a long time, but there was another Natalia helping her along. Her twin was different, though; wearing heels and a short dress with blonde hair instead of brown, and her attitude was awful.

"When I had the dream this time, the other Natalia pushed me away." The little girl continued. "She told me to go and hide, and… called me a wimp… but then I woke up, and that's it."

"Weird." Barry said, getting to his feet. "Well, with everything you've been through, I guess it's normal to have a few nightmares… but where did that hunchbacked freak go?"

Looking down at the footprint again, and then off in the direction that it was headed, the only structure in sight was a large old building, looking like a factory or something from where they were. Could that be where the monster had gone? Was it waiting for them in there? Either way, a confrontation seemed inevitable, so the big man took Natalia's hand before starting off in the same direction as the footprints. Still… it made no sense that the mutated Alex had just run off after having the little girl in her clutches.

The old tire tracks leading away from the mining village were headed in this direction as well, and since there was still no response from Tobias on the radio, this was the only clue that the big man had to go on. At least the sun was up though, making it easier to see any approaching threats that might come from the forest on both sides of the dirt road, and as the two of them got closer to the distant factory, Barry realized that this building was huge.

Forget being a simple factory, this place was like one of those _Ford_ facilities in Detroit, but there was no one around. No rotting corpses trying to stab them, no invisible bugs or talking monsters jumping down from the rooftop, everything was just quiet… no signs of life except for the main gate of the factory, which had been recently broken upon, based on how fresh the scratch marks on the rusting lock appeared to be. Crouching down and taking a look at his surroundings, Barry was really careful before approaching the front door, peeking around the side of the building and trying to see in through the windows, even though they were blackened out.

"All right, maybe we can sneak up on her." He whispered, finding the door's latch broken off too. "As soon as we get inside, find a place to stay out of sight, okay?"

Natalia nodded, and Barry took the rifle off his back, before slowly pushing the door open. It swung inward without resistance, allowing the big man to walk through with his weapon aimed just in case the monster jumped out at them or something, but for now there was no sight of it. This place was just a vast open chamber that was filled with transparent storage capsules big enough for a person, kind of reminding him of the one the Tyrant was stored in back at the Spencer Estate… especially when he saw what was inside.

The nearest one looked like the bladed monster that he had faced back at the lumber yard, but now it was motionlessly suspended in what looked like water, with air bubbles being pumped through. Another capsule contained one of the cloaked insects that he had faced there as well, again just floating there with maybe a little random twitch every now and then, but suddenly the little girl let out a shriek of fright, causing the big man to turn around with rifle ready… as Natalia ran up to a wooden board that had a… ripped up teddy bear nailed to it like some kind of display?

"Lottie!" She exclaimed, starting to cry while looking at it. "No, what did she do to Lottie?! She was my best friend!"

Now sobbing her eyes out, Natalia ran to Barry and threw her arms around him, leaving the big man to wonder what kind of sick asshole would do that to a little girl's toy. As someone who had been dealing with criminals and terrorists for most of his adult life, he could wrap his head around someone thinking that it was okay to steal or kill, or even to murder someone, but… ripping up a kid's favorite toy? That was just… sick.

"_I had a feeling you would… follow_." Alex's voice said, echoing around the chamber. "_Have you come to laugh… at me, Natalia? Come to laugh at how ugly… I am, while you get to be… ten years old again? You are false, Natalia, do you… hear me? You are false, and you… can never be me, I won't… allow it_."

"What the hell are you talking about, _Wesker_?" Barry replied, saying the name with hatred while looking around the room. "How can you hate a ten year old girl so bad that you'd… that you'd rip up her _teddy bear_, for God's sake?"

Again starting to ramble that the little girl was _false_, whatever that meant, the cloaked figure continued by admitting that something was all her own fault… to feel such extreme fear in the final moments of her life. T-Phobos was meant to be a vector for copying the conscious thoughts of another and imprinting them onto an unconscious host over the course of six months. Apparently everything had been going well, too, but for the transfer to be successful, both the host and the original had to be infected… and it was fine until Alex had been terrified at her own death… so terrified that the virus had brought her back.

"_Do you think I would just let… this happen_?" The monster asked, still not showing herself. "_To let a copy of myself exist as… a beautiful little girl while I, the… true Alex Wesker am forced to become… this freak? No, you fake Alex, I'll… kill you before I let that… happen_."

"So, you tried to turn Natalia into a mental clone of yourself?" Barry asked, still sort of confused. "But now you hate her because she's what, _prettier_ than you? Wesker, that is the… _dumbest _thing I have _ever_ heard in my life. Seriously, take a look around you… take a look at _yourself_, woman. At what point are you people going to get it through your thick fucking skulls that playing God is…

Suddenly his words were interrupted as the creature made its appearance, roaring with anger as it seemed to literally drop down from the sky, giving the big man just enough time to get out of the way before being crushed. Screaming something about having the right to be a God, the hunchbacked figure certainly didn't seem like much of a God when Barry started shooting. _Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta_! The mutated Alex screamed as its body was peppered with small bullet holes, forcing it to cover its face while making a hasty retreat by diving over a guardrail.

Not giving the monster a moment to recover, the big man slammed another magazine into the rifle before jumping over the guardrail himself, and then shooting again once it was in his sights. Glass was shattered when the mutated Alex tried to hide behind one of the capsules, causing the abomination inside to collapse after it was riddled with bullets, and Barry kept going, determined to completely destroy the monster that _dared_ to hurt his child, forcing it to stumble backwards until the rifle clicked empty.

Reaching for another magazine, the big man gasped when he realized that he didn't have any more, so he reached for one of his other weapons, but was unable to draw it before the hunchbacked creature attacked. Charging across the room at full speed, the mutated Alex ripped the rifle out of his hands and smashed it on the concrete floor, only to twitch a little when Barry balled up his fist and slugged it in the face. In response, the monster backhanded him, sending the big man rolling and bouncing across the floor while the mutated Alex immediately reached out its big hand to scoop up Natalia.

"_You fake_!" It yelled, squeezing the little girl so hard that she started choking. "_I am true! I am the original… Alex! Fear trapped me in this sickening, rancid… corpse, and now you will…_

_Bang_! The wind had been knocked out of Barry after that last hit, and he had tried his best to get up in time to save Natalia, but it had not been him who fired the large caliber bullet that struck the mutated Alex in the arm. Growling in agony as its grip on the little girl was lost, the monster stumbled backwards while the little girl fell coughing to the floor, and then the big man looked toward where the shot had come from. There on the second floor catwalk was a slender figure resting an old bolt action hunting rifle on the guardrail… a figure with short brown hair.

"No… it can't be." Barry whispered as he squinted his eyes to see her more clearly. "Moira?"


	29. Chapter 29 The Struggle

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Twenty Nine: The Struggle**

My name is Moira Burton, and I don't know if anyone will ever read these words, but putting it all down on paper helps, you know? It's funny, back in school I used to think that writing about our experiences was just a lot of bullshit that the teachers came up with just to keep the kids busy, but now I wish that I had treasured all of the events of my life up until this point. I learned a lot during my time on the island, with a lot of it coming from the first two months after I got separated from Claire when the Overseer's tower blew up.

I'm not sure how I survived the explosion, or the fall, or being buried underneath several tons of the rubble that must have fallen around me, but when I woke up I was somewhere else. Hell, at that point I was just happy to be able to wake up at all, but for a few weeks there I was in bad shape. My rescuer was an old man, a survivor of the island's outbreak, and with an attitude that was just about as grumpy as they come. He called me _Kroshka_, which I'm pretty sure means something degrading in Russian, or whatever the hell language it's from, but he patched me up so I guess he earned that one.

As soon as I was back on my feet, he told me that I needed to help with gathering food, and of course that required me to use a gun… I still fucking hate guns even after what happened with Neil, but at least my bracelet never changed color, right? At least I never ended up like that Pedro guy. Lucky me, right? So during the daytime we hunted rabbits and other small creatures that I really hated to kill, but without them we would have starved, and at night the two of us had to stay hidden inside his sanctuary down in the sewers.

I got good at hunting, although not so much on the part where it came to butchering the meat… only threw up a couple times from the smell, but it was one of the few times I heard the old man laugh. Once I asked him why we didn't try to find a way off the island, and he said that there was no time for such things because we needed to hunt in the daytime, and the monsters came out at night… even the animals on the island stayed hidden after the sun went down. Then things got weird one day; I realized that I was doing all the work, and that he was just staring at the trees, shushing me when I started to ask what was going on.

After that he hurried us back to the sanctuary, telling me that from now on we had to be careful because there was something new in the forest. A _predator_ that was so cunning and silent that the only way it could be detected was when the animals fell silent… and he believed that it was watching us even during daylight hours. Then one day after the hunt we got back to find that one of the traps near the entrance had been disarmed, not sprung but carefully deactivated, and inside the sanctuary there was a very faint smell of dried blood, like something _bad_ had come in, looked around, and then left again… and this freaked me out enough to make a really bad mistake.

If I didn't hunt during the day, then there would be no food, but I wanted to find a way off the island, so I risked going out at night. I thought that what the old man taught me about hunting would make me stealthy enough to move around undetected, but I was wrong, and this mistake led the monsters right back to our doorstep. We made our stand at the entrance to the sewers, knowing that if even one of them got through then we could kiss our sanctuary goodbye, and it was during the fierce battle that followed that I caught a glimpse of the predator he was so afraid of.

Because it was dark outside I could only see the shadow of something that looked like a man, but it managed to restrain one of the bigger monsters, the one Claire had referred to as the hammer man, and then this predator fed on it. No joke, this fucking thing sunk its teeth into the hammer man's neck and drained the thing completely dry like a God damn vampire, only to discard the withered husk and move onto the next. Just as he told me in the forest, the predator was so quiet and agile that the other monsters didn't even know it was there, and for a second… just a second I thought I saw it look at me with glowing yellow eyes before it simply went away.

Whatever this thing was, it left a huge amount of bodies scattered throughout the empty city, and to make matters worse the animals seemed to be moving on, like they were aware. The monsters were changing as well, appearing in mutations that Claire and I had never encountered, tougher… stronger… harder to kill. With hardly any animals around, the decision was made to scavenge from one of the nearby villages, and that meant that I had to sneak past several of the new mutations in order to reach the small store at the center.

One of the new mutations almost got me, but at the last second it was simply pulled into the shadows by an unseen assailant, and I nearly shit my pants once I heard the predator feeding on it. The monster groaned and kicked its legs as if it were a sentient being fighting for its life, but the predator won, and I used the distraction to carry out a bag full of everything I could get my hands on. There had been no time to be choosey, I just opened the bag and pushed everything on the counter into it before running away like a thief in the night… and by accident I discovered something important.

Along with enough food to last us for a while, there were some papers that included an itemized list of everything delivered to the store, as well as a list of islanders who had been taken away to work in the mines. That list included the name _Irina Rebic_, who I would later learn was the old man's missing daughter, and after picking up her trail after so long, the old man changed. I should have expected it, since all fathers seem to be programmed to worry and nag and… I just wish I would have understood that about my own father sooner… maybe I would have cut Barry some slack.

Up until then the old man had been concerned only with survival, but now he had a purpose, and that purpose led us to an old mining village where the papers said the workers were being taken. As with everywhere else on the island, the place was crawling with the new mutations, and even the older ones were looking different like… oh hell, I don't know, it looked like they were rotting away into skeletons. Here's the weird part, though; that predator was there again, I could feel it, but this time it left us alone while we searched through the mining village, as if it somehow knew that we were trying to find something important.

I don't want to remember too much about what we found in the mines, but I'll shorten it to say that the useless bitch of an Overseer really fucked these people over, and among the collected personal property of the mountain of discarded corpses, we found a letter that was written by Irina. I had a pretty good idea what his daughter's last words were, even though he didn't share and I don't read Russian, and the old man was heartbroken. He dropped his rifle and fell to his knees right there in the mine and cried… and then I saw the shadow of the predator watching us with those awful yellow eyes.

I thought for sure that this monster was going to attack us, so I grabbed the old man's rifle, but our stalker was gone by the time I was able to aim the thing. Eventually we made our way back to the sanctuary, and during the long walk I found myself thinking about my own father, and how I didn't want him to go through what the old man was experiencing. I wanted to survive and see Barry again, even if we spent the rest of our lives hating each other… it was better than dying in this horrible place, and making him wish that he had been able to do something more to protect me.

A different person came back with me to the sanctuary that night, the old man whose grumpiness and ability to nag and criticize was rivaled only by my own father, was now a shell of his former self. He wouldn't eat that night, and didn't want to hunt the next day, so I set out alone with his rifle, only to have him lock the door behind me. Through the door he told me that the mystery of what happened to Irina was the only thing keeping him alive, and that now the illness he had been hiding from me for the past two months had finally come to collect.

I told him not to be a fucking idiot, and he told me to wash my mouth out with soap… and the last thing we ever said to each other was our names. It's funny, right? Two months surviving together and it was only in the last moments of his life that I knew his name was Evgeny Rebic. He told me to find a way off that island and go home; build a boat or swim if you have to, he told me, and then there was only silence. I'm not sure how long I stayed at the door, knocking and calling his name as if I expected him to open it and magically be cured or something… I was such an idiot.

But now I was alone, and truly scared for the first time since losing track of Claire, with the added bonus of being locked out of the sanctuary. So I took off, needing to find both food and shelter before the sun went down that night, but not knowing where I was going to find either. Then it happened… I was walking down a trail into a new part of the forest where I hoped to find more animals and less monsters, but what I found was the predator. It was right there, nothing but a shadow in the last dying light of day, and so I decided to put a bullet right between those awful yellow eyes.

Fuck you, I thought as I raised the rifle, but the predator was a lot faster than I realized, and it snatched the gun from my hands before I could even aim. Then something completely unexpected happened as I stood there in the dark, waiting for the monster to maul me like it had done to the other freaks on the island: It spoke to me. Not roaring like Pedro had done after mutating, but calmly, and it knew my name. Weirder still, was the fact that I knew his voice… from a long time ago.


	30. Chapter 30 Not Today

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Thirty: Not Today**

Barry could hardly believe his eyes as he saw her advancing down the ramp of the catwalk, challenging Wesker head on, and having a look in her eyes that was mean as hell. As much as the big man wanted to run up and hug her right there, he was just so dumbstruck by the fact that his daughter was alive, when all of the evidence pointed to her having died months ago. Of course, this wasn't the first time a Wesker had told him lies about his family, and now it seemed that this one was gonna get the same treatment that her brother did back at the Spencer Estate.

_Bang! Click-clack, Bang!_ Not giving the mutated Alex a second to recover, the young woman shot it again and again, working the bolt of the old hunting rifle expertly as she advanced toward the hunchbacked monster. Each hit with the large caliber bullets knocked the mutated Alex back a bit, but just like what happened to Barry, she was soon out of bullets, allowing the abomination to start recovering… or at least it would have, if that had been Moira's only weapon.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ Dropping the rifle and taking a pistol out from behind her back, the young woman pulled the trigger until that clip was empty too, and leaving the hunchbacked figure with several new holes in its face. Recovering from the shock of seeing her alive, at least enough to rescue Natalia, Barry picked up the little girl in one arm while preparing to assist Moira with shots from his own pistol, but instead of backing off when she was out of bullets, she dropped that weapon as well, only to take something else out of her pocket.

With a flick of her wrist, the small object in her hand extended into a metal baton that crackled with blue electrical energy once it was activated. Gritting her teeth and tightening her grip on the baton until her knuckles were white, the young woman shrieked with pure hatred as she ran right at the mutated Alex, making sparks fly when she brought the baton across its face. Unlike the punch that the monster had shrugged off so easily, this hit seemed to really make it twitch when aided by electrical current, and Moira didn't let up.

Giving Wesker a good hit across the shoulder, and then ducking out of the way when it swung its arm in retaliation, the young woman struck the monster in the elbow, making its arm shake. Now twisting her body to avoid being grabbed with the other arm like a boxer avoiding a punch, she brought the baton down on the monster's hand to get it out of the way, before making more sparks fly when the baton was brought across the abomination's throat. This last hit made the mutated Alex stumble backwards, grasping its throat while coughing for breath, and then it fell over onto the floor.

"_She's playing dead to lure you in_." Tobias's voice suddenly crackled through the radio. "_Use this time to escape; take the far door, and head outside, it looks like backup's on the way_."

"Come on, this way!" Moira exclaimed, running toward the far door before Barry could say anything. "Come on, Dad, we're gonna make it!"

"She called me Dad." Barry said quietly, carrying Natalia as he followed.

Stopping only long enough to pick up her discarded rifle, the young woman loaded another clip into the bottom after collapsing the shock baton, and… and the big man couldn't help but wonder where she had gotten a weapon like that… or how his daughter had become such a badass over the past six months. Well, maybe that's what being trapped alone on a monster infested island for half a year did to a person, and by the time he was satisfied with those thoughts, they had reached the far door.

Shouldering it open, and then holding it so that Barry could run through with the little girl, Moira was about to take another shot with the rifle, when she gasped, causing the big man to turn around. Tobias had been right about Wesker playing dead, and now the abomination was not only back on its feet, but it was holding a syringe of a shiny black material. The young woman yelled something about it being the same stuff that Alex had given Neil, whatever that meant… but Barry recognized the black tendrils of _Uroboros _as soon as the contents were injected.

"_I can still destroy… you_!" The mutated Alex growled as the tendrils broke out of her skin. "_All of you! The big dumb idiot, the false… little bitch, and the ugly… little boy_!"

"I'm a girl, you fucking dick-holster!" Moira yelled back, firing a shot and then slamming the door shut. "Alex is mutating with Uroboros, we need more time to get away!"

That fact was obvious, Barry thought, but there really wasn't much he could do about slowing the monster down… at least, not until something was heard exploding back inside the factory. Nearest he could figure, Wesker's increasing size must have been damaging sensitive equipment or something, because there were a lot more explosions going off now, and some of them were so rapid that they even sounded like gunshots. Whatever was causing all of the growling and screaming from inside the factory was fine with him, since it gave them time to run away from the building and… come right to a steep cliff that was above the island's coast.

"You have got to be kidding me." The big man grumbled, looking for another way out. "Damn it, Tobias said backup was coming, but now we're trapped here."

"Damnit, Dad, just give it a second." Moira sharply replied. "When has he _ever_ been wrong?"

She had a point, but now that the explosions inside the factory had stopped and the angry roaring of Alex Wesker was getting closer, Barry was thinking that they might have to run for it… but then there was a new sound. It was the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors as the vehicle seemed to rise up from out of nowhere just as the monster smashed its way through the wall of the factory. It was roaring and snarling, its enlarged body swarming with Uroboros tendrils, while the visibly more human parts were cracked and covered with new burns and bullet wounds from the explosions inside. Wait, bullet wounds from explosions?

As soon as the helicopter was alongside the cliff where the three of them were standing, the side door was pulled open from inside, revealing a newly recovered Claire Redfield who motioned for them to get down while she aimed a large SVD sniper rifle. _Bang_! Partially muffled by the helicopter's rotors, the woman pulled the trigger, sending a large caliber bullet right into the mutated Alex's arm as it was crawling out of the building, causing the creature to fall on its face. Right now Barry didn't care where the helicopter had come from, or why no one had radioed him that backup was coming, he just wanted to get Moira and Natalia into the vehicle so that they would be safe.

For a moment he considered getting into the helicopter himself, and simply flying away, but if Wesker managed to escape the island, especially while infected with Uroboros, then thousands if not millions of people could be killed. By this time the hunchbacked figure had recovered from the sniper hit, and although the big man couldn't believe that he was facing down another Wesker, he didn't have a problem with putting that whole family in the ground.

"This monster has to be stopped!" He shouted to be heard over the rotors. "Claire, get these two to safety, I'll handle things down here!"

"No Dad, get in!" Moira yelled, grabbing his arm. "Look at that thing, you can't beat her alone!"

"He's not alone, Moira!" Claire reassured her, punching the wall to let the pilot know to take off. "We'll cover him from the air!"

With that, the rotors accelerated as the helicopter took off, and with a pure hatred all of his own, Barry took out his magnum revolver while slowly walking toward the monster. Checking to see if Tobias was still listening, the big man explained that he was gonna need all the help he could get on this one, and as always the detective was more than happy to reveal all he had learned about the enemy.

"_Electricity and fire hurt it the most, and the lights were still on at the factory_." Tobias's voice explained. "_Shoot that power line_."

Not wanting to waste his few precious magnum bullets on such a task, Barry took out his pistol with his off hand and fired a shot, missing the wire itself but hitting the brace that it was mounted to. The result was the same as if there had been a direct hit, the monster screaming as blue energy crackled around it for a few seconds, and then it growling with irritation when both women shot it with their rifles from inside the circling helicopter. With each hit, more of the black tendrils fell from its body, but more appeared to take their place, so the big man decided to bring out the big gun.

"You wanna hurt my family, huh, you bitch?!" The big man yelled, aiming at its head. "Well, not today, _She-Wesker_… not today!"

_BANG! BANG!_ Blasting part of the mutated Alex's face off with the first shot of his magnum revolver, and nearly detaching one of its arms with the second, the monster roared as it stumbled sideways into a stack of metal drums… drums that started leaking a strong smelling fluid when knocked over. Unable to stop himself from laughing when he realized that the mutated Alex had fallen onto a pallet of fuel drums, the big man aimed slightly downward and pulled the trigger, causing the sound of his shot to be muffled by the explosion that followed.

Now engulfed in flames, the hunchbacked creature roared as all of its tendrils fell off, shriveling up as they writhed on the ground, and leaving the Uroboros core in the center of its chest exposed. It was already starting to regenerate, so Barry started shooting, as did the girls inside the helicopter, before something landed at the mutated Alex's feet. It was a canister of some kind that beeped once it stopped rolling, and then the monster cried out in surprise when the whole thing exploded into a cloud of purple gas. The cloud engulfed the monster completely for a second, but then faded away, leaving it to roar again as its black tendrils grew back even faster this time.

"Oh fuck!" The big man yelled, running away when it started chasing him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Moira and Claire covered him from the helicopter, but now their bullets were doing nothing as if the monster had been supercharged, forcing Barry to run down the only trail around, leading him into some kind of cave. Running as fast as he could, the big man huffed and puffed while the mutated Alex pursued him with fury in its glowing red eyes, but then something started to happen. The monster was slowing down, breathing heavily as if it were running out of breath, and then its tendrils started to dry up.

_BANG_! Taking advantage of this new development, Barry turned back and fired a shot, and this time the monster's whole left leg was just disintegrated, exploding into a million dried up pieces that didn't reform. _Bang! Bang!_ Firing his last two bullets, and each one blasting a large piece of the abomination apart, the big man realized that the canister must have contained some kind of anti-BOW gas that was now eating Wesker alive, but… where had it come from?

More and more of the monster broke apart, making Wesker scream in agony and frustration as its arms fell off, and then after one more desperate attempt to bite Barry with her enlarged mouth, the monster collapsed, breaking into a million pieces as it hit the ground, and this time it didn't come back. It was over… Alex Wesker was dead, nothing but a bunch of shiny pebbles in a cave, and Barry was… well… still alive. A win as far as he was concerned.


	31. Chapter 31 Apex Predator

**Phobos: Resident Evil SVI**

**Chapter Thirty One: Apex Predator**

I was genuinely surprised when Barry Burton asked me for help to find his missing daughter, since it was the first communication we had shared since the Starlight, but as sore as I was at my former friend, Moira Burton was still my Goddaughter. Barry and I had been friends forever, ever since school when he got held back a couple grades, and I even introduced him to his future wife, Kathy. Our children were even born around the same time, at least his oldest one, and my boy had the biggest crush on Polly Burton, Barry's youngest.

Anyway, my former friend told me what little he knew about the situation where a bunch of people from that hippie group, TerraSave had been kidnapped, and that the only one to be found alive was Claire Redfield. Thing was, she didn't know much about the location where she had been held, and Barry couldn't find his ass with both hands and a mirror, so I took a risk by going to one of the BSAA facilities where she was being treated. I brought Gillette with me just in case, and good thing too, because I'm pretty sure that those jumpy little rookies might have gunned me down.

My former friend told them all to stand down, and then he got the shock of his life when Gillette ran up and hugged him. My wife forgives people for things so easily, and it's a good thing that my friend Alexia's been helping us to stabilize her spores, or that little hug could have ended badly. Speaking of Alexia, or _Amelia_ as she calls herself now, she and the other Redfield were already in the hospital room when I got there; Alexia holding her hand and reassuring her little _Claire-Bear_ that everything was going to be all right.

Personally, I can't believe how deeply enthralled Alexia has those two, but I wasn't there to figure that out, no matter how many dozens of times she played with their memories. Besides, Chris seemed really happy with her, so I ignored the whole situation and got to work, beginning with having her tell me everything she _did_ remember about the island. Not the name, I didn't need that, but what I did need was climate, terrain, spoken language, length of day and night, and architectural style. From these details I was able to at least figure out which quarter of the world to start searching in, since the place was obviously an old Soviet instillation.

Leaving Claire to rest, and then giving _Amelia_ a friendly smirk that Chris didn't like at all, Gillette and I left the BSAA hospital, with her deciding to return home while I began the real work. Starting with the location of the kidnapping, I knew that there would be no security footage from the TerraSave building, but there was _plenty _at the buildings around it. From this I managed to see what type of helicopters were used, and from there I checked which aircraft were cleared to enter the city during that period, because these days they might have been shot down without it.

My search led me to the nearest fuel depot, since those vehicles burn a lot of gas, and one of the pilots had actually been dumb enough to sign her own name on the receipt earlier in the day. All of her information was written right there in the office, including pilot's license number and home address, but since she had just flown away with a bunch of kidnap victims, I needed to wait until she returned home. The look on her face was priceless when she walked in to find her husband and children tied to chairs, and once she realized that I didn't die as easily as most people, she started spilling her guts.

Turns out that it was all an inside job, and that Neil Fisher, the founder of TerraSave, had gotten together with his former FBC buddies, and worked out a deal to sell out a bunch of humanitarian aid workers in exchange something referred to only as the package. She didn't know what that was, but everything else came pouring from her lips like water, including the locations of the island. After that she begged me not to hurt her children, but you know what? Claire and Moira were someone's children, too… so I bit her husband and then walked out of the house just as he was starting to turn.

From experience, I knew that he would burn up before leaving the house, but not before his family got to feel the same fear that Moira was going through. So I headed to the location given to me, since I wanted to check it out for myself before getting my former friend's hopes up, and a few plane rides and one boat trip later I found myself on beautiful Sushestvovanie Island. Place was big though, with a city and town and whatnot, but one nice thing about Burtons and Redfields was that if you ever wanted to find one, just follow the destruction.

The tower Claire told me about was easy to find, and then one day I spotted her. Moira was alive and well, in the company of some old man who repeatedly warned her about the dangers of being out after dark. I'm not sure, but I think he might have spotted me because he was just staring in my direction for the longest time, but then he and the kid moved on. Well shit, I thought while turning on the radio Barry gave me, mission accomplished, right? So I got in touch with him, but just when I was starting to tell him the good news my former friend cut me off, and told me he had changed his mind.

He said I was dangerous, and that he just couldn't trust me around his family, and then after saying that he would find Moira all by himself, he cut off communication. Okay then, have it your way big man, I thought, but there was no hurry to leave the island… and I was curious to see how the kid had changed since the last time I saw her… back in 1998. She was cute now, like her mom, thank God she didn't look like Barry, and the old man was teaching her how to hunt and survive. Waiting until they were out one day, I decided to get to know this man more, so I carefully disarmed one of his traps, and then had a look around.

This kind of freaked Moira out, and in the process of trying to find a way off the island she ended up leading the monsters of the island back to their hideout. Not wanting to scare her any further, I stayed out of sight, helping them fend off the mutants, and then leaving. Moira kind of reminded me of Leon Kennedy a little bit, namely on how hard it was to keep her alive, since the next time I saw her she almost got killed by a weird looking mutant while stealing food from a village, and the time after that I almost let them see me when the two of them were wandering near an old mine.

Once it was over I realized that the old man had been searching for his missing daughter, and I know the pain of losing a child, so I let them be. He died soon after, leaving Moira alone again, and that was when I decided to reveal myself. She actually tried to shoot me, and then the poor kid thought that she had lost her mind and I was a hallucination… yeah, for the next three weeks she thought that I was all in her head, but that also made her open up about what happened between her and Barry… after all, who is a hallucination going to tell?

After telling me the story about how she almost killed her sister, I replied that both her and Barry needed their asses kicked. Him for leaving loaded guns out around children, and her for doing exactly what he had told her not to do. After that, plus what had happened with the old man, I think she forgave him… but then the monsters on the island got more aggressive, so I decided to teach her the right way to survive. Over the months that followed, once she realized that I was real and freaked out a bit, I taught her how to fight, how to hit the monsters before they got her, and even how to use my shock baton.

Eventually Barry realized that he couldn't find her on his own, and begged for my help to find Moira, which I was happy to give by telling him where the island was. After all, Alex Wesker had recently resurfaced, and we needed a way to draw her out… with the sudden reappearance of that little girl being a bonus. So I pretended to be far away, guiding Barry over the radio when I was right next to him the whole time, and then I almost got caught because I didn't know Natalia could see viral infections somehow.

As Barry charged his way through the island like a maniac, Moira and I worked together to protect him, causing little conveniences like something heavy falling on a monster, or random gunshots that his big stupid ass didn't take a moment to question. During that time my former friend showed how deeply he cared for Moira, with her listening in on all of our radio conversations, but she and I agreed to not reveal herself to him until Alex Wesker was cornered. This trap worked perfectly, except for a brief time when the kid was all freaked out when we lost her father for a while, but we found him again.

Then Moira revealed herself just in time to save the little girl, with me managing to stay out of sight even as I slowed down the monster until Claire's helicopter could arrive. All along I had a weapon that could neutralize even the strongest BOW, but it was basically a grenade, and I had to wait until the monster was pinned down to use it. Based on the Daylight vaccine, I got the idea from the gas weapon that had nearly killed Gillette on the Starlight, and it worked just as quickly.

Alex Wesker was dead, Claire and Moira were safe, and Barry even took off his headset while the helicopter was flying away to look into the camera and thank me for providing support… although he was a little freaked out when he saw that the lens cap had been on the entire time, and the only way I could have seen the island was if I was there. All I could do was laugh as I headed back toward my boat, turning off the radio in the middle of his furious screaming, but you know what, he shot me in the back on the Starlight, so he can be as mad as he wants.

Everything worked out, though, and I heard that Barry even adopted Natalia a short time later. There's something real weird about that little girl, though; see most of the time she's happy and friendly, but every now and then it's like her whole personality flips to be a lot angrier and more aggressive. To be fair, most girls are like that as they grow up, but it makes me wonder if Alex Wesker's experiment to copy herself into someone else's mind was maybe… a little bit successful?


End file.
